Old Wallets

Things which are a part of our everyday living.

Car Keys, Debit Cards, Check Books, Glasses, Ladies' Purses with Wallet, Mens' Wallets, Insurance Cards, Driver's License, Credit Cards in the Wallets, Social Security Numbers, Cell Phones, Gum, Mints....

What I remember about Daddy at the end of the evening, if I happened to be in his room when he emptied his jingling, deep pockets; out would come loose change, his wallet out of his back pocket, a hankerchief out of his back pocket, his pocket watch during certain periods of time - other times he wore a wrist watch. - several random gizmos out of his side, deep pockets - oh yeah - his pocket knife. Always had that. A silver flat thing.

Mother always had her purse - which I was free to rummage through. She usually had tissue, her wallet, Doublemint Gum, first choice, second she had Spearmint. Seldom Juicy Fruit. Later years, really later she switched to all the sugar free stuff. She had the gum but always always admonished me not to chew gum in public. I do. I'm sorry. I know it's bad manners and annoying.

When Daddy died, and he had not needed his wallet for some time, Mom did keep his wallet, just as he had left it - with all the necessities inside along with the pictures he had carried with him.

Now that Mother is in heaven, as I plunder through her drawers in Evergreen - there is that familiar wallet - the one she happened to be carrying in her last years.

Both look really old and tattered, because they are.

So I brought them home for a "remembering" post.

I rummaged through Daddy's first, knowing, because I'd forgotten which ones he had, that there would still be two chosen pictures of Mother which he carried with him.

I was right.

Along with his license.

So I went to Mother's to see what her pictures were.

The one of Daddy changed over the years.

If you can see in the above picture it's Daddy and he is sitting having a conversation with someone, engaged in conversation. I think Mother probably liked this one because the first thing that the Alzheimer's disease took from his mind was the ability to talk. Not all at once, but words began to fail him - so that at the end, for a couple of years - he said nothing.

Also stuck behind this picture is the date he died.

August 8, 1993, in Mother's handwriting.

So - that was a sign of her aging and I find those little scribbles in several places throughout her "things". The date he died. Not when he was born, not when they married, but the day he left - to go home to his eternal home - the real one.

Mother, being a Mother and Grandmother, of course had pictures of her 4 granddaughters - but very very young ones.

and her license.

Next, below, is a picture Mother did carry in her wallet for years - it's of Daddy kissing Ann's hand as he left for Church. Mary Ann is holding her. I know this occasion. Charlie and I were at the beach and they were keeping Ann for us. I guess Mom just opted to stay home from church that day rather than take Ann to the nursery. Daddy couldn't miss for anything. He was the choir director and there was Sunday School in the Men's Class. I don't think he was teaching that class.

It's such a Sunday Morning picture of Daddy.

And it shows his gentlemanlike nature and mannerisms.

Ann was 4 - 5 months.


So - as Daddy was then, with his wallet in his back pocket, if we had asked to see those pictures of Mom,

here is what he would have shown us.

Not updated at all,

but still his earliest memories of her.