Monday, January 25, 2021

The Box

The Box When we moved into our current home, it was a government move. On a government move, the movers have to unpack everything and damages have to be noted right away, or you can’t file a claim against the government. The movers unloaded our belongings, which had been in storage all summer long, then instead of unpacking, they got into their truck and sped away. We spent days on the phone called the Transportation Management Office (TMO) before they finally got the company back out – meanwhile unable to unpack so we could start organizing and putting things away. The day the movers finally showed back up, I had a contractor in the kitchen talking to Mike about necessary repairs to the home, the movers downstairs unpacking the boxes while I kept running up and down the stairs. I told the movers that the boxes filled with books and papers didn’t need to be unpacked, just stack them in the corner since there wouldn’t be any claimable damages from those items, but that the other boxes HAD to be unpacked and any damages immediately brought to my attention. Going back upstairs to check on what was happening in the kitchen, I saw the movers’ car zoom by the window. Going back downstairs, I discovered they had opened every box of papers and books and scattered them all over the basement floor – from one side to the other, the floor was covered. Calling TMO, we finally learned that that particular moving company had been on the base DO NOT USE list for the past 5 years and we were the lucky people to be the first to use them once they got put back on the Use List. By the time we finished our complaint they were on the Never Ever Ever Use List. Meanwhile, TMO finally gave us permission to unpack ourselves and record the damages. Since we moved in the day Mike officially retired, the boys started at their new school, we had a house full of boxes to unpack, organize and put away and we were both job hunting, the papers and books got shoved back in the boxes they had come out of and set on a storage shelf to be dealt with later. Over the years, the books gradually got put on shelves, but many of the papers – were just consigned to sit in boxes until we had time. It took about 20 years for that to happen. Pulling the boxes off the shelves to sort through, pitch and determine what should be kept, I found a box that must have come to me when my parents left Tennessee for California a few years after we moved in, but had, like the other boxes, not been dealt with right away. In my father’s handwriting, on the top of the box, were the words: ALTON MUSEUM. Nothing more. The box was filled with pictures and records about Alton, Illinois, that had been my honorary grandfather’s. When I was about 2nd grade, we had moved to St Louis when Dad got transferred to Scott AFB, but was assigned to McDonnell Aircraft Company as the Air Force’s Contracting Officer overseeing the planes that McDonnell was making for the Air Force. At the time, we rented a home on St Catherine Street in Florissant from Mr Wagenfeldt, an elderly (to me) gentleman. My mother talked for years about cringing on the couch, with the landlord sitting beside her, her young daughters showing Mr Wagenfeldt their new roller skates, as we skated across the living room floor and not knowing how to stop ran into one wall, then turned around and ran into the other wall! Mr Wagenfeldt just sat there and beamed at us. He took us to the Museum of Transportation, where he knew more about the trains then the people who worked there. He bought us foot tall solid chocolate Easter Bunnies. How could we not make him our Honorary Grandfather? I had probably been given instructions when I received the box with where it should go, but those were long forgotten. I knew though, that I had received a charge from my father and it was a task, I had to complete. I had to find the right Alton Museum and take this box to them. Googling Alton Museum, I found 2 possibilities. One the Alton Museum of History and Art, the other the Alton Historical Society’s museum. The Art and History Museum had a facebook page, but no website. The second had no contact info. It was late at night when I sent a facebook message to the first and tried to explain who I was and what I wanted: “When I was a little girl, living in St Louis, our landlord was an elderly gentleman who lived in Alton with his sister. Neither one ever married. After they died, my parents “inherited” some of their photographs and some other things. Herbert and Lucille Wagenfeldt grew up in Alton and always lived in the same home in Alton until the point they had to go into a nursing home. To give you an idea of the timeline of the items I have, They went to school with Robert Wadlow (the Alton giant) and attended the St Louis World’s Fair. Herbert died in the late 70’s I believe, while Lucile died in the mid 80’s. I have in turn inherited their box of memories from my parents. My father had labeled the box that it should be given to an Alton museum or historical society. While many of the pictures aren’t labeled, there are ones that were obviously taken in Alton. There is also a scrapbook of a trip Miss Wagenfeldt took with some other ladies from the Alton area to Colorado when she was a young adult. While I haven’t catalogued the pictures and other items to be able to send you any kind of a list, I am trying to find out if your organization might be interested in going through what I have, or if you know of an organization that might be interested in the pictures and other items. I live in West St Louis County, so I would be able to bring the box of items to Alton” Not expecting to hear anything back for several days, I was astounded when I got a message back that night. “Hello Mrs. Weir. Mr. Wagenfeldt's picture hangs in our foyer to this day. If you can believe that. Good people they were. Most certainly and please, of course we would be interested. You could consider this the only home for that kind of personal material. We would be honored to see it. “ A few weeks later, I took the box over to Alton and met the young man who managed the museum. He told me how Mr Wagenfeldt and his friends had founded the museum years earlier. How many of the dioramas still on display at the museum had been built by Mr Wagenfeldt. Going through a few of the things in the box with him, he was astounded by the pictures that Mr Wagenfeldt had taken of Alton years earlier when home cameras were first introduced. Since that time, I have shared other items I have come across that related to the Wagenfeldts with the museum, glad that I found the RIGHT home for the items and that I had been able to fulfill the charge my father had left me with so many years earlier.  

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