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Cards and Letters

IntenseMagic

IntenseMagic

Some grannies cuss a lot. I'm some grannies.
Pollywog
Joined
Feb 28, 2012
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I'm just curious...
I spent some time today at my mom's house going through things...soooo much stuff...and a lot of the boxes that I went through today were full of cards and letters. Some of them were really interesting to read, but I'm pretty sure that my mom saved ever card or letter she ever received in her life. There are so many! Even things like job rejection letters. I don't save everything. I have a few special cards I've saved over the years, but I don't keep them all...maybe for a bit, but they usually end up going out during one of my purges.

Do you save cards and letters?
All of them or just some?
Any ideas/advice for me for dealing with the boxes and boxes of cards and letters my mom saved.
 
Our Mommas must come from the same generations. She had everything, and it was an evening of sorting. We had to go through everything due to the dementia; she had cash, checks, and other important documents in piles that made no sense.
I sat in a very comfy chair, with a 33-gallon trash can(with a black bag) and two bins. One bin for sentimental items I wanted to save, and another for legal items

I sat and listened to a good book, and cleared her office, living room, sewing room, and garage of paper boxes. I did it ruthlessly in 2 evenings. Finding the letters I wrote to her from boot camp had me laughing so hard. Then, the letters of when I gave my life to Jesus touched me so profoundly. I admit to reading the love letters of hers and my dad, with tears, racking, whole-body shuddering tears. Yeah, they went in the sentimental box.

All of this made me rethink our home. This book and many other videos that use the form caused me to clear more out of my own home.
Swedish death cleaning, or döstädning (a combination of "death" and "cleaning"), is a Scandinavian practice of decluttering your home and streamlining possessions, typically in older age, to spare loved ones the burden of doing it after you pass.


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I have a bunch of hand written letters from my college years and I'll probably hang onto those, but I don't save cards anymore because I don't want to store them.

I think I'd have a hard time throwing out my parents letters though and would at least want to scan them first. It would take too much time to read them all before throwing them away, especially if you're trying to clean out her house, but scanning would be a good solution. Assign the scanning to someone else while you clean other stuff. :agree
 
From 1989-2017, I had saved everything my children ever did in school and life. Each one had a large 3 ring binder for every year of life. When I had to downsize, I set up a work station with my recycling bin for paper, my garbage can for disposables, and a large storage bin for each kid. As I went along, I took pictures of the works of art, essays and cards that were meaningful. I saved awards and things in their bins, and tossed relentlessly. I uploaded the pictures to a shared album on Google photos and the kids were delighted to see what I had saved.

These days, I save cards and things for about 10 years (not that I have many these days), but when the 10th year comes up (I keep them with financial documents in a simple manila folder), I just read them one more time and throw them away. I don't want my kids to have to deal with any hoarding. I've already destroyed all my journals from 1971 on (except the most recent, which will probably go soon). No one needs to have access to those! I was mortified reading some of my past thoughts. I figure anything I ever wrote that was worth saving, will be waiting for me in Heaven. ;D
 
Do you save cards and letters?
Yes probably more than I should
All of them or just some?
Most of them
Any ideas/advice for me for dealing with the boxes and boxes of cards and letters my mom saved.
Good luck. I would just save a few meaningful ones and then let the others go unless you really want to put in all the time to find the best ones.
 
I saved a LOT growing up and I'd like to scrap some of that but I was sick of hauling boxes around with me and a few years ago, I went through, scanned a bunch of things and tossed a bunch of things. Now, I hardly save anything but I will scan or photograph things (cards, letters, ephemera) and put them into my project life pages.
 
AnneofAlamo said:
Our Mommas must come from the same generations. She had everything, and it was an evening of sorting. We had to go through everything due to the dementia; she had cash, checks, and other important documents in piles that made no sense.
I sat in a very comfy chair, with a 33-gallon trash can(with a black bag) and two bins. One bin for sentimental items I wanted to save, and another for legal items

I sat and listened to a good book, and cleared her office, living room, sewing room, and garage of paper boxes. I did it ruthlessly in 2 evenings. Finding the letters I wrote to her from boot camp had me laughing so hard. Then, the letters of when I gave my life to Jesus touched me so profoundly. I admit to reading the love letters of hers and my dad, with tears, racking, whole-body shuddering tears. Yeah, they went in the sentimental box.

All of this made me rethink our home. This book and many other videos that use the form caused me to clear more out of my own home.
Swedish death cleaning, or döstädning (a combination of "death" and "cleaning"), is a Scandinavian practice of decluttering your home and streamlining possessions, typically in older age, to spare loved ones the burden of doing it after you pass.


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I talked to my mom alot years ago about getting rid of things. She just couldn't, and couldn't understand why my sister and I couldn't take all her things (furniture and antiques). We both live in much smaller homes than she did lol. I am a purger at heart, but going through this process just makes me want to do so even more. I do not want my children to have to deal with all the "stuff". I've been there working several days just getting rid of junk, but this last time I unearthed the boxes of letters and newspaper clippings and cards...so many cards. I'm trying to put them all in one spot so that a few of my trips there will be nothing but going through them all. Thank you so much for your words and the book rec! I am definitely going to look more in to that!
 
Karen said:
I have a bunch of hand written letters from my college years and I'll probably hang onto those, but I don't save cards anymore because I don't want to store them.

I think I'd have a hard time throwing out my parents letters though and would at least want to scan them first. It would take too much time to read them all before throwing them away, especially if you're trying to clean out her house, but scanning would be a good solution. Assign the scanning to someone else while you clean other stuff. :agree
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Scanning is a great idea and I love the idea of assigning that to someone else haha!
 
scrapchyck said:
From 1989-2017, I had saved everything my children ever did in school and life. Each one had a large 3 ring binder for every year of life. When I had to downsize, I set up a work station with my recycling bin for paper, my garbage can for disposables, and a large storage bin for each kid. As I went along, I took pictures of the works of art, essays and cards that were meaningful. I saved awards and things in their bins, and tossed relentlessly. I uploaded the pictures to a shared album on Google photos and the kids were delighted to see what I had saved.

These days, I save cards and things for about 10 years (not that I have many these days), but when the 10th year comes up (I keep them with financial documents in a simple manila folder), I just read them one more time and throw them away. I don't want my kids to have to deal with any hoarding. I've already destroyed all my journals from 1971 on (except the most recent, which will probably go soon). No one needs to have access to those! I was mortified reading some of my past thoughts. I figure anything I ever wrote that was worth saving, will be waiting for me in Heaven. ;D
Click to expand...
Ooh great idea with the shared album!! I think I know how my summer will be spent lol.
There was a box in my old closet at mom's with old letters to and from friends and boyfriends from high school. They went straight in the trash. No way was I keeping those for my kids to read hahaha.
 
umyesh said:
Do you save cards and letters?
Yes probably more than I should
All of them or just some?
Most of them
Any ideas/advice for me for dealing with the boxes and boxes of cards and letters my mom saved.
Good luck. I would just save a few meaningful ones and then let the others go unless you really want to put in all the time to find the best ones.
Click to expand...
That's what I'm thinking. I'd like to keep a few from family, but I don't really think I need to hold on to her job rejection letters from 1972 lol
 
dawnmarch said:
I saved a LOT growing up and I'd like to scrap some of that but I was sick of hauling boxes around with me and a few years ago, I went through, scanned a bunch of things and tossed a bunch of things. Now, I hardly save anything but I will scan or photograph things (cards, letters, ephemera) and put them into my project life pages.
Click to expand...
Scanning is a great idea! I think I may work on that as soon as we're done with the junk stuff!!
 
IntenseMagic said:
Ooh great idea with the shared album!! I think I know how my summer will be spent lol.
There was a box in my old closet at mom's with old letters to and from friends and boyfriends from high school. They went straight in the trash. No way was I keeping those for my kids to read hahaha.
Click to expand...
I completely understand...my journals were graphic, and sometimes honest in the moment, but not true...if you know what I mean. Feelings that just needed to escape.
 
I have a lot more paper saved from decades ago than I do from the last decade. In the last decade I have worked intermittently on digitizing everything. The paper thing I have the most of my first two to three decades are a lot of spiral notebooks and other little books that were my diaries/journals. I photographed them all, every page, with my DSLR in 2012, so they are digitally backed up, and I'm gradually putting those photos into my Day One Journal, so that's like a second backup. (Actually I have another backup as well, Smugmug.) But unlike all other paper stuff, despite having digitized them, I'm going to keep my diaries/journals as long as I have space to store them. There's a quality of paper stuff that can't be replicated digitally, and journals are special.

I have digitized and thrown out most of my kids' papers already. They didn't produce much paper anyway. In fact, each one produced less than the one before, which I find an interesting commentary on the change from paper world to digital world in which they grew up. My kids were born in 2001, 2003, and 2006.

I am still working my way through photographing or scanning other things like important papers, cards, and letters. And now when I get new ones, I scan/photograph them right away and put them in my journal.

I haven't had to deal with parents' papers yet. I think I would look at everything, take lots of pictures or scan items, but save very little.
 
I have a few cards and letters from years ago that I have kept but mostly I toss them. I like the idea of taking a pic of some of them. These days we don't give cards. I have a box of some of my moms things and there are a few letters and cards in there but it doesn't take up much room and is stored at the back of the basement storage area. Some day my kids or grandkids will rummage thru it.
 
I have saved a few sentimental cards, handmade ones from my son when he was little, odd valentines card off hubby but most get put in the recycling bin.

I would go through the cards and letters your mom has saved and any that you want to keep scan and create digital copies.
 
My mom saved every card, every gift tag, every letter, a scrap from every wrapping paper at an important event, every bow off of a package, the envelope if it could be used again, all my report cards, newspaper clippings of anyone we knew or of anyone related to anyone we knew. And then I got to clean out all of it after she died. Some of it was treasure. All of it was hard to go through. I would have preferred less, so I didn't have to weed through the newspaper clippings of the marijuana arrest of a kid a year ahead of me in high school. That kid, the high school delinquent and adult prisoner, has had the last laugh, though. Now that pot is legal in Washington, he's a highly profitable medical farmer. He knows his craft better than anyone else because he's been in the business 45 years already, lololol.

OK, that went off on a strange tangent....

I save important cards. It needs to be from someone special or a handmade card. I used to do what my mom did. But I have piles of stuff, some important and some not, so I'm more mercenary about what I keep and what I toss these days.
 
It’s quite easy for me to keep my letters and cards as I don’t have many (not even a shoebox’s worth).
My eldest son, on the other hand, might need more boxes. He’s one of those Gen Zers who’s constantly on his phone, but even though he and his girlfriend are always on the phone together, they still write to each other fairly regularly (once a month).
 
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