Tiny Treasures in the Button Box

Dear Diary,

I went looking for a button for a project in my grandmother's button box which also belonged to her mother and which I'm so blessed to have.  I found these four tiny treasures.  How they ended up in the box is a total mystery to me.  Clockwise from upper left,  a French naval button from WWII with "Canal de Vieux" written on it.  A German silver button with a stag and cross.  The liquor manufacturer Jägermeister uses a stag and cross as a logo but it looks different than this.  It can also refer to St. Eustace and St. Hubert.  The third button is one made from a 1928 silver quarter.  These coins can be quite valuable if they haven't been hammered into a convex button!   And finally, a Civil War officer staff button from the Hudson River Institute in New York which was very near where my grandmother grew up.

All of these buttons send me down a deep rabbit hole of research to find out more about them.  The last was really interesting.  The original school was founded in 1779. The HRI became a very progressive and expensive girl's school after the civil war. It cost $400. a year in 1870 which was more than the annual salary of most families of the time.  The girls were schooled in the sciences and the arts and also had a rigorous physical education program based on the theories of a man with the rather unusual name of Dioclesian Lewis.  

That got be looking at the little chap book of my great-great grandmother, The Girl's Book of Healthful Amusements and Exercises. It was published in 1856 and cost 6 cents.  She was born in 1852 at the beginning of the Lewis gymnastic craze. (Extra shows the opening pages.)  It advocated walking, swinging and jump rope, all things that were part of my childhood, 100 years later.

Finally, I learned the Lewis opened a school for girls in Lexington, Massachusetts, the town next to Concord.  My ancestor, Louisa May Alcott attended it!  Phew!  It was such an interesting day of delving into the mysteries I found in the button box.  I pity children of today that don't have one of these in their homes.  I played with them for hours as a child and I guess they still can find ways to entertain me 65 years later!