By far the greatest find at my mother’s house this weekend was old family photos that I have never seen before.

In fact, I found three photos of my grandparents that my mother had never even seen, and she was thrilled to have them.  I also found my mother’s college yearbooks tucked away in a moldy closet.  She thought they had long been thrown out.

My grandmother Murielle (aka “Mama Benton”) was my first grandparent to die, passing when I was only 10 years old.  I don’t have as many memories of her as I would like.  I remember her as quiet and polite and always cooking something.  I can still see her sitting by the stove on her stool, wiping the sweat from her forehead and stirring a pot of something that smelled delicious.   She was kind and gracious.  Her mother and father built the house that my mother grew up in.  Murielle’s father was from England and was a military man, tall and stern.  Her mother was from Virginia and looked a lot like my grandmother.

My grandfather Clint (aka “Pa”) was kind and jovial.  He died on the day of my senior prom and my brother Joe’s birthday, when I was 18 years old.  I remember his laugh, his funny stories of yore, and how hard he worked in his garden.  He loved his dogs and raised quail.  He seemed to always be working in the garden or sitting on the porch swing.  He also used to love eating saltine crackers crumbled up in milk.

He was bald for most of his adult life and surely when I knew him, so to find a photo of him with hair was quite exciting for me.  I didn’t even recognize him!

So here you have it…special memories that were tucked away for years.  I’m so glad I found them.