In this time of being up close and personal with our homes, I was doing some spring cleaning of my craft supplies and came across my grandmother’s notes that mom had saved for me.  Looking through them is interesting for a number of reasons.

She clearly didn’t want to waste paper with her thoughts so she gave a second use to something that she may not need or could get double use out of.  She made notes on business cards and pieces of old greetings cards.  And not grocery lists or other mundane info, but words that provided her comfort and inspiration.  Did she stop in the middle of a chore to make these notes or purposely sit down and write them out carefully in an evening?  I didn’t know my grandmother when I became an adult because I moved away, but was surprised when given these notes to find her a spiritual woman, though few of her notes are biblical quotes.  I don’t know what her sources were.   This is my favorite double-sided card:

My grandfather did the same thing.  Some of his notes went in all directions on an envelope or scrap of paper.  Here’s one specifically to me, written on the back of a prayer card.

I don’t know if all people in their generation did this.  My grandparents were Kentucky farmers and I’m sure they conserved and made do, having lived through the depression and the uncertainties that go with farming.   What trials made them turn to comforting words to give them strength?  Crop failure?  A brutal winter?  Illness?  I know when my mom was a little girl the country went through a polio scare that lasted years.   At times during the 1940s and 1950s children had to be quarantined and could have required treatment with an iron lung or possibly died.  Could my grandmother’s notes date from that time?   I can’t imagine what parents went through then, as now, worrying about the health and well-being of their children.

It would make my grandmother smile to know that all these years later her words are still providing comfort, strength and a smile in hard times.   I will save her notes and pay them forward.