Grandma's hankie box is one of my fondest memories from childhood. This box sat on her waterfall dresser and she would let me rummage through it and wrap the hankies around my Barbie dolls like evening gowns. It made me feel very special.
When I became an adult we lived many hundreds of miles apart but she would come "out west" every Summer and spend some time at my house and my Mother and Uncles houses and help out with the canning and keep company. The hankie box was a distant memory but a memory just the same. When she passed away in 1991 I was asked what I would like to have as a memento and the very first thing that came to mind was the hankie box.
Over the years I have added many more hankies to the box and (shame on me!) am no longer sure which ones belonged to Grandma but there were a few other things she stored in this box that still remind me it was hers and a place to store her special things.
Many of the hankies in these photos are not in pristine condition. That has never been as important to me as the lovely designs and what they represent. They are representative of a slower, more gentle, time and also a time when things weren't so disposable as they are today. I carried a hankie in my purse myself for many years, just because.
How lovely to look into your purse and see something like this!
Thank you for stopping by today and sharing in one of my cherished memories!
