Preserving What’s Now for Then

In the last years of her life, my mother, Eleanor Manning Stine, quietly went about preserving the family history for the future. She collected memorabilia into a central file cabinet, labeled photos (sometimes incorrectly), and organized family letters dating back to the 1940s. 

Sally, Ed, and Peg Manning when they briefly lived in Detroit!

She did all of this without making a big deal about what she was doing. We knew there were things in the file cabinet but she didn’t make a point of pulling them out and sharing them with us.

It was an amazing treasure trove when we went through it.

Letter from Mom to her gang at home during WWII.

I wish, though, that she had pulled us in. I wish had taken the time before she passed away to talk with her about her family. But so often when we visited, we were busy with holidays and families. In making new memories and dealing with day-to-day events, so many old memories were lost.

After Mom died, we started to ask my father more questions. What a joy! Dad didn’t volunteer stories often, but when we got rolling he might drop a bombshell, like saying, “Well, of course, there was the time your mother moved out on me,” or “Well maybe that’s when I almost died when I was a kid.” We would explode with laughter and amazement and demand details. But think of the stories we missed by not starting sooner!

I asked Dad why he missed so much school in sixth grade

I never knew either of my grandfathers. Dad’s father, Titus William Stine, died in a railroad accident just before Christmas in 1946. Dad had married in 1944, entered the service, and traveled around the country with his new bride for two years during the war. He was anticipating with pleasure getting to know his father as a grownup when he returned. He said his father was not always the best provider, but he was a lot of fun to be with. Clearly Dad thought he was a good man. 

 

Titus Stine is on the left in this humorous postcard.

We drove to some of the places they had lived, but as I try to write stories about my forebears, I realize there is so little I know, and so much I could have asked.

 

Dad lived in 516 Locust, Bethlehem briefly. 514 Locust was a bakery!

Even more of an unknown is Mom’s father, William Traver Manning. Coincidentally he also died during the war, in 1945, but from a heart condition. Ironically we have many letters written by and to Mom’s family members, her mother's memoirs, her brother's memoirs, and an extensive history about William’s father, E. B. Manning, but very little picture of what "Bill" was like has emerged. We know where when he was born, where he lived, for whom he worked, and even who introduced him to his future wife, May Strouse. We also know that he practiced the trade of electrical engineer from a very young age, building an electrical generator contraption that provided electricity for his father's home before anyone else in the area had it. But we don’t know if he was funny or stern or what his hobbies might have been. Was he as involved in radios as his son Ed?

 

William Traver Manning, 1916

As I write this, I have three great nieces and one great nephew. That means I personally knew two of their great grandparents (my Mom and Dad) and two of their great great grandparents (my two grandmothers). How I would love to have heard stories about what my great grandparents and great grandparents were like! I am so glad that we have photos (and not just digital ones that can be lost in the ether) to show them that Mom held Immy, and that Dad met Immy, Julia, Oliver, and Avery in turn and had a chance to see their personalities start to emerge. But without all of us preserving their stories, they will be as much a mystery to them as my forebears are to me!

Mom and Dad with first great grandchild, Imogen Edwards

Dad enjoys his four great grandchildren