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 would keep historical items that may bevof interest to furure generations. But bin the rest. Yiu have to be brutal. Her diaries were her personal thoughts. Dont read them. Letters bin. Private.

Cards bin. ..just clutter

Noooo!

Diaries and letters, even of "ordinary" people, are important historical documents. Future generations of the family, as well as historians, may regard them as priceless.

If I were in your position, I'd recycle the diaries and the school books and projects. I'd store the letters and the film negatives (you may in time decide to get some of them reprinted but that is something for down the road a while). If you throw out the negatives, you'll not have the opportunity to reprint any of them.

I'd also keep the crate of notes but you might want to sort through it and put the documents and notes into plastic wallets to store them if they are loose in the crate and it will protect the documents and notes from the weather/storage conditions.

Unless you want to hang on to the telegrams and letters from your Nan, I'd recycle them too. Perhaps you could see if the content in any of the telegrams might be of interest to a local historical society (as telegrams are very much a thing of the past).

I'm so sorry that you're having to go through all of that stuff. I know, in time, I'll have to go through stuff in my family home and bin a lot of it as it won't be relevant or useful any more but it's something we'll all have to do at some point in time.

Editing this again to add that the stamp collections - bring them to a Stamp Collector's fair and either donate them or sell them there. There's bound to be something of interest to a genuine philatelist there.

My Dad had laminated the telegram telling his parents about my birth - I was born abroad in the mid 1950s. It was obviously important to him so I kept it. There is also a laminated receipt for something they bought in 1954 (no idea what it was but obviously very special) and the receipt for the Ercol dining furniture, which I now have, from 1964.

Bin the research - you have the output of that. Maybe keep the maps.

Get the app photomyne to digitise the negatives (very easy and fast). Worth paying for. Then get rid of the negatives

Maybe read the diaries (if she would have been happy for you to do that) then get rid.

Keep 10% of the school books/projects.

Read the letters again if your Mum would have been happy for you to do that. . Maybe keep a few but don't keep them all.

Pick the best stuff and then do something with it. Don't "store" anything.

things like the postcards and greetings cards will probably have value; i buy and sell old cards/postcards so I know that! check ebay for ideas
as for diaries and school books i'm a softy so would like to keep them but its up to you same as old letters but again some people do sell them look under ephemera

She might have intended them to be read by future generations, though.

I know my friend who keeps diaries, writes them mostly for herself but also with an eye to what she wants to share with family in future.

Yes, I agree, anything that she might enjoy looking at should be given to her.

A diary IS an item of historical interest!

Could you scan / take photos of them and get a book printed?

I get your pain OP. I had similar problem. My rule of thumb is: 'you can bin things only once, once it is binned that is it.' I know it is clutter, I know it takes space but there is a lot if memories there. At some point you mum will pass away and you may want to go back to those things. Navigating through grief is challenging, unexpected, constantly up and down. It may surprise you. You will regret binning those items.

I use my Gran’s baking tins very regularly..she was born in 1908…

I have filled 2 really useful boxes with diaries and letters/cards today. Still at Mums house but ready to go. I already have 5 small boxes of this at home in the lounge and shed full of the earlier stuff I sorted.
I know people are saying don’t read the letters but I had to to sort them. I didn’t read all of them, I skimmed through most. Also my Nans letters had already been read by my Mum when she sorted them. If I can’t read them then I might as well chuck them.
I have to be realistic about how much Mum can enjoy this stuff, she barely registers visits from me and her brother. There is no dementia recovery.

I think you should only keep anything you feel has lasting interest - to you mainly but to future generations if you have room.

For me that would be:

• anything she created that you like (and can display) or you feel gives you a bit of your mum back. I’m a crafter and my son can throw my half finished projects as far as I am concerned.
• some school work but only creative stuff and only a sample. Does any of it give you a snap shot of your mum at a specific age?
• letters but not the family history notes your mum made, assuming the finished report is sufficient. I have documented our family history and will make a note to get rid of this sort of thing so my son doesn’t have to. Do you know or can you contact any living relatives of the other people in the letters that you don’t want? They might like them. I’d be over the moon to get letters written by my ancestors.

I’d get rid of the ex boyfriend material. That’s personal. I’d also get rid of the diaries. I need to burn mine. I don’t want anyone going through them and judging 15 year old me.

Dementia is devestating. I’m sorry you are going through this and watching your mum disappear. I think you can dispose of it as you see fit though - and do it when feels right to you. I’m sorry if that happens sooner than you’d ideally want due to pressure to sell the house.

My FIL died recently and my MIL, who loved him to bits, has got rid of everything. It’s her way of coping and she doesn’t want us to have to deal with it when she goes. So it is not what would be my choice, but it’s none of my business.

Have you read The Museum of Ordinary People by Mike Gayle. You might find it comforting, maybe, and I wish one existed.

I don't think there's anything wrong in reading old letters. If your nan had wanted them disposed of, she could have done it herself or left instructions for them. She kept them for a reason.

I’d take the personal things to her have a read through with her, does she show any recollection of it, if not bin them all, it’s someone one else’s life and what will you do with it but put it in a corner gathering dust.

I feel for you as it’s so hard! When I was clearing my dad’s stuff I felt so guilty about what to do about things that clearly meant a lot to him. In the end I had to keep reminding myself that a lot of it meant nothing to me so it had to go.

I’d get rid of the research crate as you have the final document. The letters I’m not sure as she might not have intended others to read them. I’d probably keep the ones between my parents. School work and postcards and anything that makes you smile I’d keep. I am quite sentimental though).

There are companies that scan and digitalise old diaries and correspondence. You can then throw the hard copy out. It is not cheap.

The greeting cards and the postcards can be sold on Ebay OP. It's better than throwing them.

Do you have any idea what it takes to clear a house full of ‘stuff’? I’ve just had to do this to sell my mothers house to pay her care home fees. If I had tried to inventory every one of the thousands and thousands of things in there I would never have sold the house. And I can’t afford the care home fees without selling the place. So where do you go from there?

It’s all very well being pompously idealistic over the internet - try living in the real world.

Yep! Skips, clearance companies, selling sites etc, and my in laws weren’t hoarders. It’s amazing how much one house can generate.

@redtrain123 - sorry you are having to do this too. It is no fun ...

I would keep nothing bar some jewellery and important photographs. There is absolutely no point in passing the buck to your son upon your death, which is essentially what you will be doing. Try a book on Swedish death cleaning for help and advice.

A few years ago for us. In- laws still alive. Mil is into family history as well, and has got files and files of ‘research’. Not sure how accurate it really is. Plus stuff. Lots of stuff.