When we bought our house in 1971 there was this old trunk in the attic. We put Halloween costumes in it, and the girl's dancing class costumes. A few years after moving in, I replaced the pull-down attic stairs with newer ones, which changed the size of the opening. While starting to clean out the attic, I decided that it was time for the trunk to go. Dragged it over to the stairs, and discovered that it would NOT fit through the opening! Yikes! I discovered that if I ground off one end of each hinge pin, I could remove them, and remove the top of the trunk and bring it down in two pieces, which would fit through the opening. All this to put it out by the curb for someone to take home. Here's the cool thing - while emptying the trunk I found three sheets of newspaper in the bottom. The date was March 7, 1956, and the paper was the Pasadena Star-News! Wow! Who came from California to Sea Cliff is a mystery. The house was owned by Paul Soder and we bought it a few years after he died. I have no idea if he had children. I was told that he was a fighter pilot in WWII and he owned and operated an automotive garage in Sea Cliff for years. I did a close up of the shipping label as well. The afternoon of the second day that I put it out to the curb, someone came and carried it home!
Wonderful old trunk. I am so happy that it has moved to a new home and will not end up in the trash.
ReplyDeleteJoan
If trunks could talk! I'm not sure I agree with you and your sister on this on. It seems that The Old Trunk should have remained in your attic with it's history that perhaps predates the previous owner. The Railway Express label is interesting and, who knows, maybe this old trunk originally came to America in an old tramp steamer from Europe or some other far away place. Now some lucky duck has a very cool old trunk - but a trunk without any history at all!
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