Quote:
Originally Posted by robedits
I can only think of one. My mom's uncle was Nap Rucker, the BKLYN pitcher in the early part of the 20th century. Only visited him once, in Georgia,on his "plantation" in the late 60s (I was around 9 yrs old,and he must have been in his late 80s by then). At the time I think he worked as an executive for a bank,but he had a lot of land.
Anyway,he gave my brother and me a glove (which was worn and hanging on a hook in his shed),and an old Dodgers cap. After I begged,he gave my mom his Dodgers windbreaker and uniform shirt (as I remember,he had several of each of these things all over the place in his gigantic house,along with many other trophies and such).
I still have the cap. |
Without my knowledge,my mother gave the uniform shirt AND windbreaker to my brother to sell when he fell on hard times 20 or so years ago, and unknown to me he then stored many of his belongings in a storage center in queens,NY (we didnt talk much then;still don't to this day; he was nothing but trouble.)
He wound up losing his storage place when he didnt pay the bills...including the glove and uniform AND windbreaker.
THis all happened within a month, and I didnt find any of this out until I visited my mom's house about a month after that. She had never told me on the phone about giving the precious family mementos to my brother.
Apparently all he had to do was pay $100 in back rentals. So,in effect,he lost these momentos (along with many personal belongings) for a lousy $100.
I would at the time have gladly purchased the stuff from him for much more than that...but we hardly talked so that was that.
Can't imagine how much those would be worth today,20 yrs later. If I had had them then,I never would have sold them and would have kept them in the family.
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when I was married, I lived in Alpharetta, Georgia - Nap Rucker was once the mayor there. In the '40s he was a scout for Brooklyn - I have a page of his hand-written scouting notes.
It's not much solace, but at least you still have the memories - great story. Unfortunately, most of us have stories where a relative has done something like this, generally unintentional. My brother was telling me recently that all of the baseball cards I gave him when he was a little tike (mostly HOF'ers from the '60s), mysteriously disappeared when Mom stored our childhood belongings with a family 'friend' who apparently had children who didn't have much integrity. When my Dad was a child, his drunken uncle spent my grandfather's silver coin collection (1800's/early 1900's) on booze. I was dumb enough to toss out my card collection all by myself, when I became a 'grown up' at age 12. Now I find out I'm still not a grown-up
