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?

Horrible person.

If you have a local archive society/museum they would love it.
Then you haven’t dumped it & it is available for your family if they want to look at it later.
Just make a record of where you have donated it to so it can be found in the future.
It is really great social history!

Decide on how much space you are prepared to give eg a lidded plastic box or a small suitcase and cherry pick a selection of items that will fit in it
I love family history so would choose that first - but I keep it to a single suitcase which is also full of old photos
I would bin the negatives and most of the crafts and artwork if they were mine

Also, vintage greeting cards can have a value, look on eBay & auction sites.

Blimey. You would all bin it all? I would keep at least one part of all the bits!

We are the same, Grandparents and our own parents stuff to sort through. We are very creative, so will perhaps use some of the lovely clothes to make things with. I found a “button tin” I hadn’t seen before the other day, had a happy couple of hours sorting through this, some absolutely gorgeous ones, that would cost a fortune now.

Something I always think about, life is very different now. Very few people now write letters, send many cards, actually use a proper camera. We have lots of letters that our Grandparents wrote, postcards from holidays, and a wonderful collection of letters from the days of the Hollywood Studios, where sometimes the golden appear stars would write and send photos to fans. Mum loved the cinema, and I think my Grandma actually worked as an usherette at some point. Hundreds of photos as well, many sorted in albums with names. Go right back into the early 1900’s, through both World Wars. I’d like to create something our local Museum might use if possible.

No, diaries and letters seem so personal, I have my memories of my grandparents and that’s who they were to me, I have of course kept photos of the people I knew, and some things that were useful like a small piece of furniture and an ornament, but only because I want them in my house, not sat in storage gathering dust.

@BurbageBrook

Oh God I massively disagree with some of the posters. I absolutely wouldn't bin her diaries and letters. No way. They're so special. They tell you who she was.

I know who she was, who she was to me anyway. I didn't need to know who she was to others. Letters and diaries are deeply personal and private. I couldn't have read those, it wasn't my place to do so.

Agree, letters and diaries are private, they should remain so.

Some people write diaries because they want their memory to carry on after their death. Not just other people's perception of them but their actual feelings and experiences. I would absolutely not throw out diaries.

I’m the wrong side of 70 and attempting to declutter in the hope of downsizing from my 4 bedroom house. I hate the thought that I’ll die and leave a huge amount of crap for my children and grandchildren to sort out. I’ll keep on with the sorting and decluttering . But if events take over and I pop my clogs I hope my children can fill a guilt free skip and move on. It’s only stuff. I want them to take a few personal items if they wish and dump what’s left .

There really aren't any desperate museums, i mean they desperate for money but not for more stuff - unless it's well within their collecting policy or a specific project - in which case they will advertise or do a call out. Same with local archives if there is one. Honestly if it's a case of bin or museum, in the main I would bin.

That said, you mentioned how the scant things from your grandparents are significant to you, so maybe a selection of things might be helpful to the next generation in your family?

OP i am very sorry about what you are going through, the sorting and deciding is so hard on top of all the other draining decisions.

It's so hard isn't it.
The crate of notes about the family history can go because she's created a document with that information.

Diaries are quite hard - my Mam dumped all of hers before she died apart from the ones that were about the first 10 years of my childhood which she gave to me. I am glad to have them. My Dad died suddenly. I still have his diaries in my cellar but I haven't read them because I don't feel it's any of my business and I think at some point I will have to ditch them. I don't think it's good to be reading through your parents' private thoughts. However, if she has written in a more social commentary style they could be an interesting historical record. It really does depend on what's in them.

Old school books and projects - maybe keep one or two of them and the rest go out. Or take photos of any pages of interests such as a couple of examples of her creative writing or art or something.

Letters: I think I would take photos of anything I wanted to keep a record of and then bin everything else - basically a sample of them. The ex-boyfriend ones can go straightaway. Same for Nan's correspondance - digitize anything you would like to keep. I think these sorts of things are a very interesting historical record for your own children and their children.

The diaries and possibly the negatives, if there's a way to get them printed. I wouldn't keep anything else.

Thank you for all your replies, sorry I have only just got back on to read them. Interesting how different people’s responses have been and what is or isn’t important to keep. Luckily I missed the 1 judgey poster!

Reguarding the diaries, I am going to keep them. Somehow she had loads of them, I have already bought 1 box back home before I found another. She would have no problem with me reading them, she even went through a brief period of emailing me typed up extracts a few years ago. It’s not deep meaningful stuff, more lists of what happened that day, what we ate for dinner, the weather. Still they trigger nice childhood memories. So there are 99% safe although I may whittle out the ones where she only filled in a couple of weeks and left the rest of the year blank.

Same with the photos, bar strangers pets and funeral flower arrangements I am keeping all photos, some going back to 1930s. But the negatives I’m unsure of, I suspect they were all developed at some point, it’s the cross referencing that’s draining.

I love the idea of a collage of the prettiest old greeting cards. They really were special in the 1950s, a nice time capsule.

With the love letters, again I don’t think she’d be bothered about them being read. The ex boyfriend is still in touch, even though it was decades ago they were together! A lot of the other letters are a bit boring to be honest, family members who are long gone and moved overseas. And friends I have no idea existed. One very interesting letter from my Dads first girlfriend to my Mum when they got married. But I don’t know if this will mean anything to anyone else.

My Mum has brothers but I think a lot of what she kept from my Nans house they already went through together when my Nan died. I’ve put aside some stuff that would interest them but they have not exactly been beating down the door to help with this side of things.

I’d love to be able to take a big box of this stuff into Mums care home but she is getting beyond the point of getting any enjoyment from it. She is in bed most of the day, her eyes barely stay open for 20 seconds, not long enough to show her postcards. Maybe I could read the diaries to her. Before this stage she was aggressive and tearful so anything I gave to her was at risk of being permanently damaged.

I personally kept a very few items from my Nan, her hat which she always wore is something I treasure. But she died fairly quickly and was all there until the last few days in hospital, my memories of her are all positive. It’s been different with Mum, I have been a carer since her husband died 5 years ago, probably due to the stress of dealing with her dementia which was just revealing itself in depressing ways. I miss my old Mum so much as I never had the chance to say goodbye to her, so I can’t think about how she used to be.

I have space for a really useful box. I used to have a hobby years ago and I had a little shed for it, now it’s filled with stuff from Mums house, I want a bit of that space back so I can start up my hobby again on the odd day I get a minute. This is why I don’t want to spend ages digitalising stuff, I want a bit of time back for me. Plus I also have numerous memory sticks, hardrives and CDs with stuff on from Mums that I have to through, the formats change with time and some become redundant, paper doesn’t.

Hi , I’m currently sorting boxes from my mums , she has gone into a care home and after a life time of hoarding; has no interest in any of her things . I found the point about letters interesting , that they are written to another person ; not us .

I wouldn't bin any of that!! Some of the PPs are so cold! I'm using my grandparents pans which aren't that great but I can bring myself to throw them away

Snap, I’d bin 95%. Well probably 99% but I am not close to my mum so that’s probably contributing to that and there will be nothing interesting in my mums house!

I think though thinking of your daughter is good, I’d say get a photo album and just allow yourself one album of paperwork and photos.

I'm not cold, just practical. I didn't need the pans, I have my own pans. If someone has a use for something by all means, keep it, but don't be suggesting people are 'cold' when actually they are just practical and realistic. The vast majority of us in this position are grown adults who already have our houses full of our own lives, we don't have space to keep everything of another person.

@arthar , I agree , I live in a very small already overstuffed flat , and I just don’t have the space for my mums things .

I actually needed some pans at the time (just moved), but I now just can't bring myself to bin them!! The pans are a bit extreme and wouldn't have kept them if I hadn't needed some, but tbh I do think it's cold to bin diaries, letters, kids artwork etc. Obv I don't keep everything DD has ever created, but certainly a good percentage (in a storage box, nice and tidily, don't worry.)

I could have written this myself a few years ago - it's such a tough task.
I kept the most sentimental things, like diaries, and took photographs of other things - made it easier to let them go.
Good luck, I really feel for you x

Whole post so resonates with me. My mum was only sixty when we lost her but she had a lot of stuff as the only daughter in the extended family she had all my grandparents and great aunts stuff too.

I'm fortunate that my step father continued to live in the family home for many years so I had time to grieve without the task of sorting stuff. And he disposed of all her clothes, make up, accessories etc.

But when he died, there was still a huge amount. And I live several hours away so it had to be sorted over one long weekend.

I have boxes of books, china etc still in my garage. Plus her wedding dress. Costume jewellery, my grannies furs. Family bibles, photos, crystal ware, silverware that isn't really worth much apart from scrap.

I wish I could be ruthless but I can't.

When my mother with dementia died I went through everything (Inc what I thought was an important box but was just full of old empty envelopes!) and kept photos, diaries, info on our relatives etc. I then bought plastic folders each with a different subject and boxes to put them in. I felt at that stage I had done a good job - honoured her life but left it easy to sort/bin when I died. That was some time ago now and I really don't think my dc will give a shit so that is a conversation I need to have. By the way I was very upset to find she had disposed of all her photo albums since I was born and still don't understand what her poor brain was thinking.

The things you have listed would for me be the absolute greatest treasures. I would be happier to find these things than anything else - I'd choose a childhood diary over a hugely expensive piece of jewellry or something, any day! I would absolutely keep and treasure every last thing you listed. If you don't want it, then another family member might love it. Please don't throw away something so precious!