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"He'd pull out a pile of her postcards and then he'd pull out something from the Colonial period and then he'd pull out letters from Robert E. Lee," says Lee Shepard, the society's senior archivist. "There was no rhyme or reason to it. She was the unofficial family historian, but she was also a bit of a pack rat."

I've got people like this in my own family. When my grandparents moved out of their house into a rest home unfortunately I wasn't there. I fear probably a lot of letters, etc. that could have added more to my family's history was tossed out like last week's paper.

But imagine, letters and memorabilia from literally two different eras. It's one thing to see them in a museum but that she kept them. Like a personal connection to the beginning.