To ask if you would bin this stuff from my mother house

[SinisterBumFacedCat]

Sorry, this is very long. My DM has Alzheimer’s and moved into a care home last year. It’s been heartbreaking really. I’ve been all over the Dementia and Elderly parents threads over the last few years looking for advice. For a long time she was like my best friend, we used to go clubbing together even. However my brain has shut off a lot of my old memories of the nice times and all I can associate with her now is stressful visits and her sharp decline. It’s horrendous.
Meanwhile I have been clearing her house out for possible renting/selling to help pay for care costs. I feel like it’s taken me ages to do, I‘ve had all sorts of health issues and Covid twice. Also Mum was the world’s tidiest hoarder so the first chunk of sorting was generally getting rid of rubbish she’d refused to throw away and things she’d brought multiple times. I also had to clear out a lot of my deceased stepdad’s stuff she’d never gone through. The furniture has finally gone off to good homes. I’m now down to the most emotional stuff that I’ve purposefully left till last, a lot of it I can’t bring myself to chuck out of guilt however I’m limited on space in my house, I have enough of my own life admin to go through and chuck out. I keep imagining my son going through all my stuff one day and thinking, why did she keep all this junk?! So I wanted to ask what you would keep if it was your Mum? Baring in mind, she is still alive, and although she’s not going to make some miracle recovery and return home it’s not the same as clearing out a dead relative’s possessions, so what would you do with the following:

Old diaries-going right back to when she was a child to just before she got ill.

Old school books and projects of hers.

Projects she did for fun as a kid (little books/unfinished short historical stories)

Letters between my teenage parents (cringey but also very sweet) old long dead family members and friends she lost touch with over the years, plus lots of letters from an ex boyfriend.

Letters and telegrams from my Nans correspondence with long dead relatives from many years ago

My Nans collection of greetings cards! Actually some of these are properly beautiful 1950’s Christmas cards I definitely want to keep

Film negatives of photos, no idea if I have the prints but it would be a big job to match up

A crate of notes my Mum made whilst researching her family history. She produced a final document for everyone in the family with all the important information in. But this crate is full of folders of notes (all in pencil), maps, old documents that feel exhausted looking at.

Amongst this stuff I have found a few gems, letters from my paternal grandfather who died when I was a baby, so I have no memory of but he sounded so lovely. Postcards of old seaside towns in the 1980s that take me right back to childhood holidays. But I’m very aware that one day my DS will be sorting through my stuff and wonder why I’ve kept 3 generations of stuff. Would you chuck it all or keep any of the above?

I’d just bin most of it but then I’m the type of person who only keeps a minute selection of their children’s artwork because I’m very anti clutter and I don’t need every small doodle that they drew .

When we were clearing DGM house we burnt all these types of things, particularly letters as they weren't ours to read. Sorry not much help - were brutal but none of us wanted them nor had room for them.

I was very close to my grandparents when I was younger, especially my grandmother. She died when I was 19 and at the time my parents and uncle got rid of lots of “junk” from her house, ornaments, her cookery books, bric a brac. Not maliciously, they just thought no-one would have any interest. I had no say as I was only young and it didn’t occur to me to take an interest.

Now, almost 30 years later, I would give anything for them to have kept some of that “junk”, the odds and ends that remember from their house. To be honest, I would keep all that stuff.

Diaries and letters, school books, projects, the family history crate and negatives I would all bin. Postcards and cards I might take a photo of if really special.
I had the same with clearing my parents house that they had kept boxes and boxes of things from other relatives, most of which meant a bit to me, but would mean nothing to ds so I was just saving up work for him

I would definitely keep the diaries and letters - not only are they hers, they may help her dementia recovery so should be brought to her home x

Difficult isn't it - but these are the sort of historical documents that gain interest with age and upon which many books have been written. But you need the space to store them .........

You can buy a negative scanner thingy quite cheap my family had one and a slide scanner they uploaded loads to ancestry and it helped locate relatives and friends of relatives history I would scan and then bin the physical copy future generations would enjoy it

Unless you are into family history - get rid of the notes you mention.
I would keep the negs as I'm into family photos , but that's just me.
Would bin the boyfriends letters. Keep the ones between your parents.
Reduce the amount of seaside postcards down to a number that would fit in a small flip album, or maybe a photo storage box.
Keep one school book of a subject she loved.
Reduce down the projects to something that fits into an A4 document box.

When my parents died I did throw out lots of holiday photos that had no significance for anyone else.

I’d keep the diaries and letters and the family history project , irreplaceable for her history and your extended family history
everything else could go

I'd use some of the money from renting out her house to hire a storage unit or garage, and keep it all there until she died.

Then you can donate to historical societies/ museums keep or bin as you choose without the guilt of giving away her things, because at that point they'd be your things.

I'd keep a small selection of anything you would like to look back on from time to time, or digitise things. If it's pure guilt and you or others would not be interested, bin.

Not sure what a PP is suggesting re dementia recovery??

I would keep your parents ' letters and the cards you like but get rid of the rest.

Unexpectedlysinglemum, there is no recovery from dementia!

Gosh I would find some of that hard to get rid of but my advice is just to keep a small selection. Unfortunately no-one has the space for all of this stuff.

I am dreading having to sort my Dad and Stepmums house when the time comes as they never throw anything away.

I can’t imagine binning this stuff. I honestly don’t know what I would do with it (so not much help really!), but the thought of so much history being erased is horrible to me. Perhaps it’s because I don’t know much about my own family history so to find something like that would be like striking gold for me. But I totally understand that some people either already know enough or feel it is too personal so may not feel as sentimental about it.

How old is your son? Can he help you make the decisions? I would probably read through old diaries then throw them away, unless any of them held any particular significance. Also, just in case there is anything useful for tax purposes with dates of anything?

I know you mean well, but there’s no such thing as dementia recovery; it’s a degenerative brain disease.

OP: reminiscence can be beneficial for some people living with dementia, but may make others feel upset. If your Mum is still able to communicate, you could say cheerfully that you found her school projects and ask if she might like to have a look through them together sometime?

The other stuff I wouldn’t do anything with yet as, like you say, it feels strange to ‘do’ anything with them while your Mum is still around. I’d box them up and store them safely for now.

Hi my mum has just gone into a home
, I have had to bin lots of things like photos and school reports . Total empathy, it’s a horrible job.

I'd keep it all. I so so wish my grandparents had left diaries. All I know is that my grandad was at the D Day landings.

She’s not going to recover, it’s been a series of sharp declines. She was still writing a diary 5 years ago. I could take one of the old ones in and read it to her. She’s asleep much of the time and refusing food.

I’ve also got 3 stamp collections I have inherited, hers, stepdad and my grandfather’s. I’ve no interest in stamps bar the arty looking ones.

I think you could digitise most of it. The diaries certainly could be, and perhaps worth publishing. Like you didn’t know your grandad, perhaps one of your children might want to read their Nan’s diaries?

Old schoolbooks and projects, I would recycle them or save a select few masterpieces.

Greeting cards can be sold to collectors.

The family tree, you can start an ancestry account and once you’ve built it and scanned any documents, you can get rid of the paper bits.

I know it’s a lot, but if you have siblings or older DC might they like to lend a hand with some of it?

When I was 10, I started my family tree based on a pile of papers my grandmother left my mum- she’d actually gone round to churches and records offices. Today I have it all on ancestry and I chip away at it. Very lucky so much is online and being added to every day.

Please send diaries to here: https://thegreatdiaryproject.co.uk

you can make any restrictions you want about when they can be read etc

I’ve also got 3 stamp collections I have inherited, hers, stepdad and my grandfather’s. I’ve no interest in stamps bar the arty looking ones.

Definitely get these valued! You might be sitting in a gold mine that could be auctioned to a collector.

Wait, as your DM is still alive, you haven’t quite inherited anything yet.
So you need to be careful with her belongings and inventory them.