The Old Country

It was her lunch box. I don't know if she actually used it.* But it came from Norway via my Auntie Ann in 1957. My great grandmother's name was Gurianna Skorgen.

The box is made of a wrap of wood creating an oval. The lid is carved to fit and has a branch looped to make a handle. The box may have had different decorations when Gurianna used it. Though its current colors look fresh, they are at least 60 years old. Sitting on the shelf it gets no wear.

My grandmother, Bertha, came to this country when she was 18. She never returned. She was up in years by the time this keepsake of her mother's arrived here. I'm sure she would have found some comfort from this treasure had she had it with her through all those years to remind her of family and of home and of the Old Country.

Reflection is mixed in with the Things I get to do today, and I'm seeing Gurianna as a young mother filling the box with lunch items to take with her children as they walked into the town one spring day. It feels somehow familiar being back in the Old Country.

* No sooner than the post hit the "press" and my mother said quite sternly: That lunch box carried food five times a day to the men working in the fields. It was filled with cheese and bread to feed the hungry men during the hay harvesting. . . .     My reflections should have told me.