Full Version of my Article

My article for the june issue of Beneath the Willow Tree had to be shortened. I can be long winded when I write and poor Toni only has so much space! LOL
I thought I'd share the full article here..... no limit on my space! heehee

" Some days it was idle curiosity that drew me up those attic stairs.I'd linger for hours With shadows dancing across wooden slated walls,I'd gaze upon my reflection in an old mirror that hung in one area.It wasif I belonged to the ghosts in the attic.

Closing my eyes.... listening for a soft whisper .... I remember finding an old wooden crate.
I pulled the crate out and carefully shook it.Finding spiders was not my favorite part of any of my discoveries.I looked down into the crate as hints of Whispers from my Past flowed out from within.

A blanket was inside....the binding long gone from the love of a child.
I placed it aside to ask Gram if she knew who it belonged to. I would find out later, it was my grandfathers baby blanket.In the bottom of the crate was a photo album. I pulled the album out gingerly, flipping open the old cover to the first page.

It was as if Memories had waited quietly for the turning of those pages again. Images floated up at me of faces I did not know and yet my own face stole up to me from in those pictures.I could see my own reflection in her eyes.
My great-grandmother Eva Wright French Somers.
I had been told many times that I had her eyes. My cheeks were round like hers.My personality on the other hand; was that of my grandmother who's attic I was sifting thru; but that is a whole other story!

I was sitting in the dusty attic with photographs that were over 100 years old.
Photographs had been a luxury. Blessed that Eva's family was wealthy enough to have so many taken. I flipped the worn pages carefully.
Eva wearing a white lace gown that I had yet to discover. Wearing a brooch that I knew my aunt now kept in herjewelry box. Documents were also to be found in the album and tucked down in the crate.These were invisable heartstrings connecting me to my past.
Letters written to her parents while away at Cushing Academy.Newspaper articles telling the story of the death of Eva's father while trying to save an employee of his store in 1895. The marriage certificate of my great- great- grandmother from 1896 when she married for the second time. A picture of Eva with a small child over her shoulder. This child would turn out to be my grandfather.A piece of paper yellowed with age. On it, written in the smallest handwritting his weight for the first few months he was born.It was thrilling to have this connection to the past.

I drug all those old photos down from the attic.Gram told as many stories from each picture that she could recall. Names to as many faces as she could remember. We now have those stories to cherish forever.

NExt time, you open an old box or even a book, and an old photograph falls to your knees.Don't place it back into its hidden spot. Reconnect to your past so that generations that continue from now, will have a few more answersto their past.Bring the albums out for display again. Frame special pictures to hang about your home.Wrap yourself with the your own Whispers from the past.

I sat next to an old rocking chair that day. The leather seat torn many years ago and then forgotten.The next Whisper from the Past will tell the story of furniture found covered with dust in the attic. "