Ben Milam Artifact

[Bill Yowell]

I was watching the "Antiques Roadshow" last night, and one of the articles presented was the hand written and signed last will and testament of Ben Milam, that was dated about one year before his death. The document was presented by a lady now living in El Paso, Texas, but who retrieved the document while working in the Nachadoches, Texas public library some thirty years ago. According to her story, she was assigned the duty of cleaning up the library basement and ridding it of all the "old papers" stored below. She supposedly reported her finding to the head librarian who showed no apparent interest in the document, and was advised that she could keep it or dispose of it as she saw fit. Since this document was discovered at a time when the historic significance of Ben Milam was well understood and recognized, it caused me to wonder how many other significant papers or documents have been carelessly tossed in the trash for lack of interest of what one might be throwing away. Incidentally, the document was valued at a minimum of $30,000.

[estebans]

Laredo Archives--TSHA

The above is a link to a similar story about how the Laredo Archives were saved by an individual in the 1930s, leading to a protracted court fight due to the value of the material therein.

It is probably a good thing that today such a TV show might make an administrator reluctant to throw out old documents heedlessly. I suspect every longstanding county court or public library in Texas could have material of historical interest, and certainly some local historical societies are working through it now, especially to digitize it.

Sadly, there is possibly more unrecognized material of historical significance passing out of family hands today. I remember reading a very poignant blog account by someone who found a box several years ago at a garage/estate sale that contained letters, uniform patches, photos and other memorabilia of flying planes over the "Hump" in WWII, which had come from the first husband of the woman who had just passed away. His children were so young when he died that they had no memory of him, and hence no attachment to what was in the box. Their father had died during a winter drive to the laundry he owned after the war--he spotted an elderly woman who had fallen on the sidewalk, had a heart attack picking her up, and could not be revived, according to the newspaper account. The finder was moved to locate the man's grave and the building that used to be the laundry, and someone else had contacted because their family had bought that laundry from the widow and run it a long time. Yet as the finder said, the memory of that flyer was in danger of being lost almost entirely. I know it sounds like one of those sentimental memes, but the blog post had photos of the evidence. I think whoever said that history starts with family history, as the first history we usually learn, was correct, so it's really sad to see the thread of family history snapped as in that story. I get the distinct impression that those inheriting from baby boomers in the U. S. are getting rid of stuff to an unprecedented degree, forcing us to hope cynically that they will at least put it up for sale instead of sending it straight to a landfill.