collections | in the bungalow

So, I'm still not done sharing photo projects from my summer beach trip. And this one might be my favorite collections photo so far: things found in the bungalow.

The bungalow is a small and simple house that's been in my family for 70 years. It's a treasure trove of memorabilia - there's not a lot of stuff, but the items that remain have stood the test of time throughout four generations of my family spending summers here.

There are games and cards, little jars full of screws and hardware, doohickeys for holding flowers in vases, and golf-club shaped swizzle sticks pilfered from country clubs. There are boxes of fishing tackle and buttons (doesn't everyone's grandparents have a button collection?) and guide books about seashells and birds and saltwater fish. There are ancient paper napkins imprinted with lobsters. Old golf balls. A recipe for clam chowder in my grandmother's handwriting. A wooden box shaped like a crab (with three pennies inside).

A few favorites...

This plate:

And this wine coaster:

They speak the truth, right? Sadly, my favorite item from the bungalow seems to have disappeared. It was a little plaque that hung on the kitchen wall. It read "THE FOUR SADDEST WORDS THAT WERE EVER COMPOSED ARE THESE DISMAL SOUNDS THE BAR IS CLOSED." (Score! I just bought an identical one on Ebay!)

When I was searching for treasures in the bungalow, I came across a pile of pages from an old photo album. The familiar handwriting led me to believe it was my grandmother's, but after looking at the dates and inscriptions, I realized that the handwriting must have belonged to my great-grandmother. I couldn't identify most of the people in the photos (most of which were taken in the 1920s), but among the album pages, I found the passenger list from the S.S. Rotterdam - a Mediterranean cruise that my great-grandparents took in 1928. I'm assuming that a lot of the photos taken in exotic locations are from their cruise.

Check out the ports of call (Seriously, how adventurous were my great-grandparents?! This was 1928!):

There were also postcards from my great-grandmother to my grandmother to let her know that they had arrived in Athens and Cadiz. And an ancient postcard from the Dead Sea (which really doesn't look like such a fun vacation destination):

I absolutely adore this photo of men and their fish. I hope I'm related to at least one of these guys. Wouldn't this picture look amazing printed out poster-sized and framed?

And an old favorite - my dad and uncle, circa 1941:

So glad that my family of packrats held onto these treasures!