French World War One bedroom of soldier who never returned

[AJFitzpatrick]

"The bedroom of a World War One soldier, killed on the battlefield almost a century ago, has been kept virtually untouched by successive owners of the house up to the present day."


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29740037

 

[Moore]

That's awesome, it's something you don't see everyday and unfortunately most preserved places etc like this tend to be vandalized or not taken care of. I'm glad we still have little pieces of history lying around everywhere and I'd hope they leave the room as it is. It bugged me enough she already went touching and moving things when he would've been the last person to ever put them there and he's not even around anymore. Thanks for posting this.

 

[OldTanker]

Having worked in a Regimental museum for several years I started to gain a sense of how long memories last. We would often get medal sets, pictures, shadow boxes, etc, brought in to the museum by grandchildren and great grandchildren of veterans who simply had no memories of the individual and saw no point to keeping the memories alive and the artifacts around. It was always sad to have to break apart the shadow boxes and simply discard some of the items. The medals went into our medals cabinets and we would ensure that the name and service record was updated in our Book of Remembrance, but we  simply didn't have the space keep the shadow boxes and to store the odds and bits (obviously we kept items of Regimental significance). But it makes we wonder how long memories last, or should last. Two generations, three generations? I've seem pictures of my great-great-grandfather and honestly they have very little impact on me. There is no lineage of memories so he is just a face on a picture. Which gets me to wondering if this memorial to the young French officer is poignant, or frankly a little bit creepy. My  :2c:

 

[Moore]

Having worked in a Regimental museum for several years I started to gain a sense of how long memories last. We would often get medal sets, pictures, shadow boxes, etc, brought in to the museum by grandchildren and great grandchildren of veterans who simply had no memories of the individual and saw no point to keeping the memories alive and the artifacts around. It was always sad to have to break apart the shadow boxes and simply discard some of the items. The medals went into our medals cabinets and we would ensure that the name and service record was updated in our Book of Remembrance, but we  simply didn't have the space keep the shadow boxes and to store the odds and bits (obviously we kept items of Regimental significance). But it makes we wonder how long memories last, or should last. Two generations, three generations? I've seem pictures of my great-great-grandfather and honestly they have very little impact on me. There is no lineage of memories so he is just a face on a picture. Which gets me to wondering if this memorial to the young French officer is poignant, or frankly a little bit creepy. My  :2c:

I've never thought about it that way, you raise a good point. It's scary thinking about how we are here now but give it a rough 350 years and no one will know who the hell we even were. I think it's sad just throwing out bits and stuff but eventually it's always going to come to that point. The only real lasting memorials we really have are tombstones. I'd hate to think of a day thousands of years from now where there's not even space or a point in those anymore.

 

[reccecrewman]

I've seem pictures of my great-great-grandfather and honestly they have very little impact on me. There is no lineage of memories so he is just a face on a picture. Which gets me to wondering if this memorial to the young French officer is poignant, or frankly a little bit creepy. My  :2c:

Another perspective; when we look at photos of our ancestors (particularly any pre-WWII) we probably all feel somewhat the same as you mentioned.  There's a detachment there because we have no context to include them in our life, and therefore little room in our memory for a virtually unknown (usually stoic looking) individual who stares back at us in a yellowing old black and white photograph, despite there being a direct heritage link.  Now, in todays day and age, we have the ability to record and store pictures and video clips with sound that our descendants will be able to access.  Our great great grandchildren will be able to watch videos of us at family gatherings, functions, ceremonies and regular everyday life clips that we capture.  They'll hear us laugh, talk and see us interact with their other family members and will be able to place us in a context within their lives despite never having met us.  This ability will possibly extend our memories of our ancestors another 2 or 3 generations before we slip into complete obscurity.