The\nold trunk sat next to the chimney in the attic of the house my father built in\n1945. My mother had told me when I was a teenager that the trunk belonged to\nher father who died in the 1920’s. I had every intention of going through the\nold trunk to see what was there and what I could learn about Walter Keeling\nDavis, the man about whom my grandmother (his wife and mother of his seven\ndaughters) had spoken so adoringly. An artifact that I discovered during my\nteenage years was a somewhat disheveled violin that my piano teacher at that\ntime did not so carefully reconstruct. My mother raved about the skill of her\nfather with the violin in his hands and the beautiful music he had shared with all\nthe household when she was young. I took a few lessons (enough to know that it\nwould take many more lessons to release the beauty of the instrument) and\ndecided to put that off for a while and learn the guitar instead. The violin\nwas with me from the time I left the farm for different horizons, until I\nreturned at retirement. The partially restored instrument now hangs on the wall\nand my grandchildren gently touch it in awe. The other partial contents of the\nold trunk now await my somewhat careful perusal. So far, I have discovered a\npartially tattered letter from my great grandfather Davis to his son (my\ngrandfather) who was in school in Kansas. Another less moth-eaten letter from\ngrandpa’s sister was sent to the same Kansas address and gives a glimpse of the\nlife they lived in 1902 in rural, southern Virginia. I have barely touched the\ngreater content of what was in the old trunk before it was stored in Dad’s\nworkshop. Someone seemed to have dumped the trunk junk into an old picnic\nbasket that was shoved under some shelves, again in the attic. It appears there\nare documents from the other side of my family (my father’s) as well. This old\nsoul (not the young whippersnapper that was swift on the move) gives thanks\nthat there’s a long lost reality to be discovered from over a century ago that\nis a part of the fabric of the diverse family that exists today. The presence\nof the coronavirus and the demands that it imposes if one wishes to avoid it,\nhas placed me squarely in a position to again begin the journey of looking back\ninto the history of what was family. The challenge to stay busy, keep moving\nand give thanks for the gift that is shared as life today raises its lovely\nhead from the old trunk and the picnic basket with a wink and a smile. Thanks,\nGrandpa! I never knew you (nor you me) but I am thankful to get a glimpse of\nthe man who had such a positive influence in the life of this old guy with The Thriving Heart. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The old trunk sat next to the chimney in the attic of the house my father built in 1945. My mother had told me when I was a teenager that the trunk belonged to her father who died in the 1920’s. I had every intention of going through the old trunk to see what was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parkinsons-disease-rants-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/45"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}