The Strangers in the Box

This poem is widely circulated among family history and genealogy blogs. 

I thought it's meaning is so important that I wanted to share it with my family here... 

Come, look with me inside this drawer,

In this box I’ve often seen,

At the pictures, black and white,

Faces proud, still, serene.

I wish I knew the people,

These strangers in the box,

Their names and all their memories

Are lost among my socks.

I wonder what their lives were like,

How did they spend their days?

What about their special times?

I’ll never know their ways.

If only someone had taken time

To tell who, what, where, or when,

These faces of my heritage

Would come to life again.

Could this become the fate

Of the pictures we take today?

The faces and the memories

Someday to be passed away?

Make time to save your stories,

Seize the opportunity when it knocks,

Or someday you and yours could be

The strangers in the box.

© 1997 by Pamela A. Harazim.

  All Rights Reserved.

May be used in unchanged form for non-commercial purposes

 if accompanied by this copyright message.