My mother was from the generation that wrote down little sayings and quotes and even made up their own...they wrote them as little quotes in the senior autograph scrapbooks and diaries, many of which I have scanned.
This Greatest Generation was influenced in a major way by their parents of the WWI Generation, and the WWI folks learned from the Pioneer Generation, most of whom came from the "Old Country" and immigrated here to Iowa to build it into the great agricultural state it is today.
Decades later mom's generation remembered some of those things and would write them down on scratch paper.
When someone from those generations would pass away I hear many of the descendants complain about all the junk and useless information that was kept ("they never threw anything" I commonly hear from those who inherited the stuff), even though most of the time they seldom went through everything in the boxes of stuff that was kept.
In a rush to just get rid of those things, they don't realize they would probably learn things about their parent/grandparent/aunt/uncle, even though they think they already knew everything about their loved one.
Here are 3 short items my mother wrote down and clipped.
I'm guessing the chicken & pig story is something she remembered hearing as a little girl and then wrote it down on this page of a little notebook.
Mom would hear some of these little stories/quotes in Plattdeutsch but over the years she forgot how to say them in that language and was never a written language because of all the different dialects of what was called "Low German."

Chicken said to the pig
Cluck Cluck, isn't it great that we've been able to provide ham & eggs for mankind?
Pig replied, For you it's just involvement, for me it's total commitment.

As I go through the little boxes of things she kept in the garage, I'm watching for things like this and historical documents/records of community activities she was involved with...for some items I take the time to scan but I don't have time to scan everything now, but will file it away in envelopes and store in plastic totes.

I know most people say you can't keep everything but for most people they have little to nothing left of their past - most of it has been thrown away and what's left will hit the trash can sometime in the near future.
These quotes above are also something people in society need to ponder - where we came from and where we are heading.

Here are some memorabilia items she kept - I'm sure not all that interesting to most people but pieces of the Manning puzzle that I just love to scan, preserve, and archive.

1985 Parks & Recreation flier by Bruce Beasley

1987 MHS Christmas Concert

1988 Boyer Valley sports feature - partial scan

First National Bank calender - MHS schedule

The Parks & Recreation flier created by Manning's director Bruce Beasely from 1981 through I think 1989 who is also a great friend of mine, was VERY creative and brought quite a few new ideas to Manning from his home of Coralville, Iowa.

Now take some time to really study the items.
The first thing I noticed with the Christmas concert filer is the title "Christmas."
They also performed the Hallelujah Chorus from the Messiah - and a notation to stand was printed in the program.
The Messiah and more often the Hallelujah Chorus was performed many times over the decades, but I can't remember the last time it was performed in school and/or as a non-denominational event in Manning.
I have a performance I scanned years ago that was held in the old high school in 1970.

Note all of the businesses we no longer have that are listed in the 1988 sports feature.

Messiah practice - west bleachers of old gym.

Faces I see who are no longer with us:
Dorothy Kusel, Helen Pratt, Rita Zerwas, Judy Joens, Imelda Kerkhoff (Lydia Musfeldt behind Imelda), Dave Edgerton, Dean Fara


More faces I see who are no longer with us: Tom Henderson, Michael Mohr, Jerilyn Kusel

1970 Messiah


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