“There are only two lasting bequests we can give our children – one is roots, and the other, wings.”– Hodding S. Carter. (1907 – 1972) American journalist and author.
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Dear kids and grandkids,
Every day, I live with history around me. Aging pieces that sat unmoved in my grandparents’ home, some of it for 63 years before coming to live with me.
A curved glass buffet with a dining table and chairs purchased as used furniture during the 1920s by your great- and great-great-grandparents. A bedroom suite that dates to WWII. And a library table that predates the bedroom furniture. To visitors, they are antiques. To me, they are time machines.
Please let me explain that connection.
My next birthday will be number 79; the exact age my grandfather was when he died in 1967. I was 19, old enough to know him well as a child, but only years later, old enough to understand the sheer scale of what his eyes witnessed compared to mine. These days, I’m awe-struck by how two lifetimes can span nearly 140 years of rampant human progress yet remain anchored by tangible timeless reminders.
Pieces that graced the small, frame house S.V. and Hattie Lois Aldridge called home at 323 Cypress Street in Pittsburg, Texas. Where they lived from Halloween night 1930, right at the dark beginning of the Great Depression, until my grandmother died in 1993.
Because their home remained a living time capsule, my childhood summers are permanently woven into the grain of this furniture I have. When I look at it, memories flow. I see their dining room filled with family, the table laden with food my grandmother spent hours cooking. I hear the laughter and clinking silverware during many Sunday and Christmas dinners together.
I vividly remember being just tall enough to reach the top of the buffet, stretching for the cut-glass bowls where Granny kept bananas and the cookie jar.
I’m at home with the bedroom suite where I slept during my magical summer visits—the dresser with the same small clock. The bed still wears the chenille bedspread, today some 70 years old, where I played for hours tracing the bedspread’s raised tufted patterns like tracks for my toy train.
Remembering that now feels incredibly poetic, remembering that my grandfather, born in Hamburg, Mississippi, in 1888, went to work for the railroad in 1901 at just 13 years old. He spent 53 years on the rails, a grueling career that ended only because he suffered a heart attack in 1954.
He worked through the transition from horse-and-buggies to automobiles in the early 20th century. He witnessed two World Wars, fought in WW I in France, and saw the dawn of airplanes, electricity, radio, and television. Had he lived just two more years, until 1969, he would have witnessed the historic event of humans landing on the moon.
By contrast, my 78 years have spanned the dawn of the space age, the rise of the internet, smartphones in our pockets, and a completely interconnected digital world.
My grandfather was also a uniquely special figure in my life. Dad’s parents were the only grandparents I grew up with and spent meaningful time with. Mom lost her mother while still in college, and her father died in 1951 right after my third birthday, leaving me with only faint memories of him.
So, the bond I share with my dad’s parents, and the physical things they left behind, became my deepest anchor to the generations before me. When they looked at the buffet, the Great Depression or recovering from his heart attack might have been on their mind. When I look at it, I think of them, and I think of you.
History isn’t just something found in textbooks. It’s alive in my house. It’s in the craftsmanship of a generation that built things to last. And it’s in the resilience of a 13-year-old boy who helped build the American railroad system.
I am writing this praying that you will consider these pieces not as relics of the past, but as a promise for the future. You carry their resilience and my memories in your DNA. I hope some of you will become trusted caretakers of these pieces someday.
And, more importantly, that you will take care of the stories I write that keep them alive.
All my love,
Grandpa Leon
—Leon Aldridge
(Photo above — The guest bedroom chest of drawers that dates to about WW II. On it is the clock that sat in that spot when I spent summers there as a youngster, a picture of Hattie Lois (Farmer) Aldridge, my grandmother, about the time she married in 1920, and a music box I gave her for some occasion many years ago. The lamp? Nah, that’s “vintage” dollar store stuff.)
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Leon Aldridge is a veteran editor, publisher, and communications professional, currently enjoying semi-retirement while awaiting the next challenge. His columns appear in: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.
© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2026. Feel free to use excerpts with full and clear credit given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling.’
