Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: TRAVEL (07/08/21)
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TITLE: My Grandmother's Trunk | Previous Challenge Entry
By Marilyn Borga
07/14/21 -
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During the long, bumpy ride to the city, she tried to erase the memory of her mother’s tears and her little sisters’ muffled cries. At the train station, her father spoke a blessing over her and kissed her goodbye. Margit nearly panicked when her trunk, that precious link between her past and future, was hoisted onto a boxcar out of her sight. She settled into her seat in the passenger car and she pretended to be a seasoned traveler.
On the thousand-mile train journey west, she saw breathtaking landscapes of rugged ice-covered mountains, fertile valleys, lakes, rivers, and bustling cities. When she reached the coast, the trunk accompanied her onto the ocean liner that would carry her another three thousand miles to New York City.
The trunk stayed with Margit in her room at a boardinghouse in New Jersey, where she labored in a factory, rolling tobacco leaves into cigars. When she met and married my grandfather two years later, it traveled with them as they moved to various coal mining communities along the Ohio River in West Virginia and Ohio.
A few years later, they rode the train to far-off Boulder, Colorado, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where Grandpa tried his hand at silver mining. This time the trunk was also packed with clothing for their two young daughters. They began to miss their friends back East and soon returned to the Ohio Valley and the coal mines.
Grandma stored the extra bedding in the trunk but also used it as a keeping place for the money they saved. They had enough to buy a small farm just around the time the Great Depression hit the country.
For three decades, through hard times and prosperity, the humble trunk rested in a bedroom in the farmhouse. It was dented and rusty; its leather straps had rotted away. A coat of gold paint did nothing to improve its appearance. Grandma had an abundance of dressers and cabinets now; she no longer needed the old trunk for storage. She fashioned a flowered chintz cover for it, but she hadn’t the heart to discard her faithful companion, this bond with her childhood.
After my grandmother’s death, the farm was sold, but the trunk stayed with the next generation and the next. It was never needed but was always cherished as a symbol of the courage and faith of our immigrant grandparents.
A few summers ago, someone brought the trunk to the family reunion, hoping to find it a new home. We cousins eyed one another warily. We didn’t want the trunk to be abandoned, but still, we were all getting older and hoped to downsize.
“I’ll take it.”
The words came from Mark, a cousin-in-law. He was newly retired and looking for a project. The rest of us breathed sighs of relief.
The next summer, Grandma’s trunk returned to the reunion along with a scrapbook of glossy photos to document its beautiful transformation. Mark had removed the layers of paint and had repaired and polished the sheet metal and brass hardware. He’d replaced the leather straps and repapered the interior. He’d even saved the coal dust that fell out of the cracks and poured it into a tiny bottle.
Mark had never known my grandparents, yet he had heard a thousand stories. He saw the love and respect we all had for them and the pride we took in our genealogy. Our faces creased with wide smiles. He had turned the tattered symbol of our heritage into a handsome family heirloom. After traveling thousands of miles in more than a century, Grandma’s trunk was assured of a place in the family for a few more generations. And with it, we hoped the stories would continue to be told.
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