Soul Sister

Last year I helped clean out the house of my oldest living blood relative, my father's sister. My aunt moved to an assisted living facility and my job was to go through her house and try to cull important papers. My husband and I spent three dusty days going through old tax returns, computer manuals from the early 1980's, and copies of old angry letters to William F. Buckley.

But then I discovered the treasure -- my grandmother's household account book from 1927.

I was only eight when my grandmother died. I have fond memories of her but I never really knew her. But I did get to hear her first-hand description of what it was like to cross the north Atlantic in 1914 with two small children and what it was like to go through Ellis Island.

She was born in Northern Ireland in the 1870's and came to New York in 1914. Her husband died in 1927, leaving her with four children to raise. So when I realized that the notebook I found dated from the year her husband died the little hairs on my arms stood up straight.

The first page is written in pencil and is a recitation of the costs of a construction job for "Mr. Cooney" from May 5 - June 4. From other things I know, this was my grandfather's last construction job before he died. Apparently it cost $1,075 to put plumbing in a new house on Staten Island in 1927. Pages later I learn how much a funeral cost at that time. And a few pages later: "magpies stripping cherries from Mr. J's backyard cherry trees. Neighborhood perturbed."

I guess life went on.

I found a few other similar volumes, covering odd bits of years until her death.

I NOW know how much my father earned from one of his first gigs as a musician in 1929 ($4). I know when my uncle enrolled at Columbia (Sept. 27, 1934).

So I guess I'm not the only one in my family who has felt an inexplicable need to record what is going on around me.

The book now sits on my desk and whenever I feel stuck, I open to a page and try to decipher her handwriting. And I feel a burning need to fill in all of the empty pages, even if just in my own mind.