Prior to visiting my mother for the holiday weekend, she told me of a journal she found from one of our family members. It dated from the late 1800s (1868 to be exact). Although she has had it for a while, she recently found it again when pulling out decorations for the new season. It wasn’t until the most recent time around that she realized it was a journal or scrapbook of sorts and was eager to show it to me since she thought I would appreciate it.
When she handed it to me I immediately noticed how delicate it was since the cover and some pages were no longer attached to the binding. It has a lot of wear on the edges of the pages but it oozes history. Page after page there are stickers, memorabilia, and images pasted inside the book. Some include poems and tiny bits of writing (in English and Swedish). When I finished looking through it, it seemed more like a scrapbook than a journal. But, however one chooses to classify it, I’m thrilled we have such a great piece of history in our family.
Luckily I had my digital camera with me and was able to take photos of some of the pages and beautiful details.
Some of the pages were so ornate that I’m thinking of photocopying them to use in my own journals.