Family stories, amazing or amusing? My maternal grandmother passed away in 2000. Amongst a box of her papers, I found a fifty-year-old uncancelled check. On the face of it, no big mystery, a little absurd perhaps to have a check for 24 cents, but still, knowing the background made it even more curious.
Ephemera with a Story
Why is this curious? The date, the amount, the day, the participants, the reason. My parents were married seven months after this check was written. Did my father drive from Lexington where he was in school at U.K. to Louisville in February to buy a quart of milk? So doubtful. Did he go to ask my grandfather’s permission to marry his daughter? I wonder if I can find the notice for their engagement and date that? Did my parents both drive out from Lexington to Louisville that weekend? February 2, 1953 was a Monday. Shouldn’t he have been in class? Was this as simple as he, a twenty-year-old college student, skinny as a rail, needed a quart of milk to tide him over for the drive back to school? Why on earth did she charge him for the milk? Why didn’t he just give my grandmother a quarter? Was he saving his cash for gasoline money? Why on earth did he have a bank check with him and not twenty-four cents? I wish I had seen this check before my mom or dad passed away because there must be a story here and I’ll bet it was a very funny one.
