I’m rather relentless about corralling clutter. I’d even go so far as to call my behavior a wee bit controlling. I cull our family possessions reguarly and let go of all of the “things” that we cart with us like so much excess baggage. You know, simplify…simplify.

But I’m a real softie when it comes to the sentimental stuff, like Steiff bears, hand puppets, children’s books or mementos from generations that went before us.  Sometimes I find it a struggle to sift and store so many miscellaneous belongings.

But it is worth it, and here’s why. This post is about how to cherish family memories, share them and disperse them when it’s time.

In His Majesty’s Service

Did you see “The King’s Speech”, last year’s big Academy Award Winner? It was in that romantic era when my father-in-law served King George VI in Britain’s Royal Air Force.  He was a Wing Commander who left us too soon in 1985 from the emphysema caused by a lifetime of smoking.

My husband added the Wing Commander’s battered black metal footlocker to our household goods in 1990 after sorting through his deceased mother’s belongings. I placed it with the small mountain of possessions in our own garage and never opened it. Neither did he.

The sides of the locker were pockmarked and covered with peeling layers of gray, blue and black paint. Its latches were rusted shut from too many years spent in the dark recesses of damp and untidy garages. His name, rank and address of last posting were hand lettered in white enamel across the top.

Global Nomads

Since it came to us, that footlocker has been moved back and forth across the Atlantic four times. With each move, as I struggled to trim the load of our household goods, I questioned whether it was worthwhile to lug it along. Yet it never seemed to be the right time to sort through its mysterious and musty contents.

One day, as a wrestled with a pile of boxes to be stored after our most recent move, our ten-year-old son, Robert, came round to help me. He discovered the scruffy black locker that had belonged to his “English Grandpa” and begged me to open it.  I hesitated.

My resistance came from deep in my childhood. “Hands off your Dad’s footlocker,” my mother would holler down the basement stairs whenever bad weather forced my sisters and me indoors to play. “It’s off limits.”

We didn’t need to be told. Neither my mother nor any one of my five younger baby boomer sisters ever dared to open Dad’s dull green footlocker. Through the 1950s, 60s and to the present day, has been his special place where the proud memories of his U.S. Air Force days are kept.

But Robert insisted that we open the Wing Commander’s treasure chest…now. He’s a member of the Millenial Generation with strong feelings for his grandfathers.

We pried the creaking latches with a screwdriver and recoiled from the moldy whiff as we forced back the cover.

Inside were dense layers of faded maps, papers, postcards and albums laced with cord. We handled the tiny black and white photographs not much bigger than postage stamps that had broken free from their paste and careful labels in fading white ink.

Onion domed churches, German village halls draped in swastikas, proud Continental cathedrals and unknown train platforms.

“This must have been before the second war,” I murmured.

Palm trees and pyramids, a turbaned Bedouin with a chimp on his hip, officers striding along a Cairo street in uniforms with short trousers, their necks swathed in white Turkish towels.

“North Africa.”

Robert and I continued to dig through the moldering mounds of paper.

Aerial photos of bombing sites in Germany, charts with penciled routes of air cover for the Normandy invasion, a front page from the London Daily Mail with screaming headlines, a logbook recording in careful hand the details of his every move as a flight navigator.

Taking Flight

Robert read the flight log aloud.  “Tiger Moth, Fokker, Anson, Battle, Blenheim, Wellington, Lancaster.”

We peered at photos of a flight crew laughing as they savored pints of beer on a grassy English hillside, flyers wearing heavy fleeced jackets layered over flight suits, expressions of intensity and exhilaration.

“Cool,” Robert whispered. “I wish he was here to explain all of this to us.”

I found a tarnished bar of medals that had once decorated the Wing Commander’s uniform and pinned it on Robert’s t-shirt.  He darted out of the garage to show his older brother, tucking in his shirttail and seeming a little taller as he went.

Make a Veteran’s Day, Every Day

In May 2011, the Department of Veterans Affairs estimated that approximately 2,079,000 American WWII veterans are still living. Estimates are that they are dying at a rate of 850 to 1,000 per day.

• If you know a WWII veteran, take some time to open a real conversation. Respect the boundaries of those who may not want to discuss details. You may find that when their memory of modern times fades, their recall of long ago events remains.

• Consider taking your loved one to a StoryCorps booth to make a recording of their life experiences.  The professional recording is free to the public though donations are encouraged. You receive a CD of your conversation as you leave the booth and the MP3 will be stored in the Folk History Archives of the Library of Congress forever.

• Ask how your veteran would like their keepsakes dispersed.  Most items will not be museum-quality, but they represent precious reminders of your family history well worth keeping.

• If you find yourself overwhelmed at the task of sorting through a deceased veteran’s belongings, call in a specialist. I’m partial to Cari Hays and TrusteeHelp. Her hands-on approach to “Respect – Sort-Move It Out” can make a manageable molehill out of a mountain of memorabilia. 

The men and women of the Greatest Generation created the Baby Boomers in the post-war peace.  Take time to offer your personal thank you to them, and the generations of courageous veterans that followed in their footsteps.

And, while you’re at it, take good care of their “stuff.” It’s the stuff of life and it will make you smile.

Do you know a venerable veteran? How will you honor their courageous contribution to our lives?