Objects: Pin box

I have it in mind to do a series of photos of household objects that have some particular interest, either graphically or as souvenirs, etc.

This first is a small wooden duck-shaped box brought to my paternal grandmother, I can only believe, by my aunt -- her daughter. My Aunt Angela has lived in a number of interesting places around the globe -- Mexico, Morocco, and Thailand come to mind. There were always a few gewgaws here and there in the family's homes that had come from Aunt Angela from some far-flung place on the globe. Aunt Angela was always -- and continues to be -- just about the most interesting person in the family. It was always great fun when she came to visit -- every couple years, it seems, to attend a wedding or to see some new infant in the family, etc.

This box came to our home as a gift from my mother to my wife. I presume it came into my mother's hands after my grandmother's death in the mid-80s.

I believe that my grandmother kept straight-pins and what-not in this box. I recall it being in her bedroom. I suppose that my mother kept the whole thing intact. And now it is on my wife's dressing table. And for all I know -- and I have no reason to think otherwise -- these are my grandmothers pins etc.

There are objects in each of our homes that carry our family or personal cultures forward from one lifetime to the next. This is one of our family's little artifacts.