Family Trunks - Trunk #1 & Trunk #2 - Part 1

My parents have five trunks. Four were military trunks.

Three have been stored in the garage. I have used two to store my personal belongings in them.

I had a curiosity as to what was inside the ones I could not easily obtain as they were high out of reach. 

Two trunks hide the larger old steamer trunk behind them.

One day, my brother helped get the two smaller ones down for me and the adventure began. 

Here is the story of what I found in two of them. 

TRUNK #1

What is under the sheet?

Opening this one brought my brother and me back in time. Mom had made this a "Time Capsule" box for us in some sort of way. The items were covered by an old sheet. We found dress-up costumes from our history.  I found some photo memories for a few of the items.

1. Hula outfit sent by my father to me from overseas while living in San Leandro, California, during 1961. There was also a larger Hula skirt for mom to wear. 

I found a picture of me modelling my father's gift.

2. Fairy Halloween outfit Mary wore 31 October 1964 in Negishi Heights, Yokohama, Japan.

3. Roman "leather"
skirt & "plastic" sword which my brother wore in a Latin class banquet day at “YoHi” Nile C. Kinnick High School in Yokohama, Japan on 30 April 1965.

Love the helmet!

  






4. Ken and Barbie masks my parents wore on 19 Sept 1964 at the Yokosuka Officer's Club for a co-worker farewell party on the USS Oklahoma City.

5. I was a member of Girl Scout Troup 205 in 1966 in Virginia Beach, VA.

Other items in the trunk included:

6. a Japanese wig

7. two Japanese robes

8. a pair of Japanese "tabi" slippers

9. a box of Japanese “Jewelry”

10. a white summer dress

11. green fabric

12. a purple tablecloth

13. a white embroidered Filipino apron

14. a plastic bag with yellow fabric

Some of these items were kept for history & others were sold in our estate sale.

TRUNK #2

This trunk belonged to my mother when she belonged to the United States Naval Nurse Corp from 1944-1949. To my surprise, when I opened it; it contained items that belonged to my father who was a career Naval officer from 1949 to 1967. 

The items in this box helped me to get to know my father as an adult and what his Naval career job involved as he took us around the world. I found documents, articles, letters, photos, uniform attachments, cap, gloves, medals and matching pins.

It also included baby shoes, childhood items, school memorabilia, and so much more.

My father was killed when I was a pre-teen and I have few memories of when we were together as a family.

I put together a photo scrapbook of my father's Naval career after looking through everything in this trunk. It took 6 months to research and organize photos for telling his story. I got to get to know my father as an adult. What an endearing and fantastic project for me!

To my surprise, I saw a larger trunk farther in the back behind the original two trunks. Now to get that one down to find out the mystery of its contents.