My husband Bill could be called a pack rat. Merriam-Webster defines pack rat as a person who collects or keeps things that are not needed. Bill would likely draw a distinction about the things he keeps; someday he might need or want to use them.

Nonetheless, our basement and garage are filled with 'stuff', and we don't even know the extent of what's there. This week Bill went fishing. In his absence I started going through some of the plastic storage bins in the basement, looking for my belongings that might be given away to charity or thrown in the trash. 

One of the bins stored behind some furniture contained a metal box, probably a safe deposit box in its first life. Bill's father worked for a bank so it's likely he acquired the metal box when it was excessed during a bank renovation. A small metal tab on the side of the box reads:

Furnitures & Fixtures

8824

First National Banks Mpls 

In 1998, when Bill's widowed mother moved to a senior apartment -- after living nearly 60 years in the house she and her husband had built --we moved many of their belongings to our basement. The task was too overwhelming at the time to go through everything carefully. Years passed, and storage bins collected dust in our basement.

So what was inside the metal box? Many envelopes, of various sizes, most labeled to describe their contents. Bill's parents had obviously stored their valuable documents in the box for many years. Real estate records, wills, old letters -- plus precious historical items from Bill's paternal Irish grandfather and maternal Swedish grandfather. I was stunned. Hundreds of hours of family history research would have been saved if I'd looked in this box 10 years earlier! What I found will support a series of blog postings. The title of postings in this series will begin "WITB?" (i.e., "What's in the box?"). I hope you enjoy looking over my shoulder as I describe the items and tell their stories.