In early 1992 I had a unique talk with my five teen and pre-teen children. I went to work for a new employer who incidentally sold blank will kits. I brought one home. “I want your computer,” my youngest son said and this was disputed almost as quickly by his older brother. “I want the VHS movie collection,” a daughter argued, her siblings had something to say about that too.

Today I don’t think they would any of that. I mean VHS tapes have little value, even less value for a 1988 IBM 8088 20 meg desktop computer. Guess “stuff” is valuable only in its relativity.

That is why the Gary and Joyce Stuber treasure box might be filled with stuff that appears to have very little monetary value, but it’s intrinsic and sentimental value could be somewhere close to priceless.

As a child I read in Sunday School about how King Hezekiah of Judah in a moment of braggart showed all his treasure to the King of Babylon and that was his undoing. Isaiah said now the king would desire it and steal it. Which he would and did. (Some, like myself think that is why Isaiah hid the Ark of the Covenant, possibly below the Temple Mount where is still rests quietly). But since there is little chance you will covet or want to steal our treasures, I am going to share some of these with you.

Yes, like most we have a box or two of sentimental costume jewelry, some still stylish, some homemade. Buttons and pins from moments past, bubble gum machine and Cracker Jack prizes fill some boxes, along with award pins, memento and employee milestones. Not just ‘stuff’ but moments and memories. Some treasure is too big to fit in jewelry boxes. Some small enough to just fill hearts.

There is a tale behind this coin. In the first year we were married in 1974. Our first four months together were my last four months in the Marines. We were married in Norfolk and lived on the beach. This coin, an 1878 silver Canadian coin was a gift on our
honeymoon. Well more like a reward. The day we were married we moved into our beach apartment and we spent the afternoon and most of the evening cleaning. We found the coin on top of a very dirty and sticky hot water heater.

In September of 1974 living at Maysel, West Virginia, we got the news that Joyce was pregnant. We were elated. You see up till then we were wondering if she could. In April while still in the Marine Corp, we lost twins to a miscarriage. The Easter weekend surgery was devastating. There was a possibility she couldn’t get pregnant again. This news was joyful. So at the Clay County Apple Festival fair at Bradley Field we ran into one of the venders guessing weight. I gambled a dollar that they could not accurately guess Joyce’s weight. I won. She said, “if she is pregnant let me guess the baby’s sex.” I agreed. She said it would be a boy. I strongly disagreed. “This will be a girl. We already have a name picked out.” I insisted. She smiled and reached me a cheap pink princess phone. “Then here, this is her first present.” I know. I know. It should have been given to our daughter when Lorna was born eight months later. In a sense is is part of her as part of the Stuber Family treasure chest.

My discipline didn’t just ‘begin’ as a Marine. No. I started out as a Cub Scout. Then I became a Boy Scout. And from age 12 to age 18 I had two bicycle paper routes (one in the pre-dawn morning and one after school). I have lots of certificates, awards and photos from those times. But this hat and three neckerchief holders are all the physical things I have of that world. When I was seven years old I came home from school with a piece of paper from Mrs. Dotson saying I wanted to join Cub Scouts. After meeting with her, my mom became a Den Mother. Years later when I became a Boy Scout, my dad would become Scout Master. Such was the depth of their commitment to their children and their community.

If you can’t tell by looking at this what it is. It is a toddler’s cast. Right forearm. It was worn by our daughter Lorna when she was 21-months old and hospitalized for 30-days at CAMC Memorial Children’s wing in 1977.

She had scratched a mosquito bite on her knuckle till it became infected and transmuted down into her bone. She developed Osteolemitis, a crippling children’s disease.

This was a joyful yet traumatic time in our life. We had our second daughter Leona only thirty days prior to this event and I was briefly unemployed living on unemployment with now, no insurance. Fortunately, WV Crippled Children picked up the hospital bill. I stayed most of the time with Lorna, sleeping in a chair next to her bed. Joyce was splitting time with Lorna at the hospital and the newborn at home. We leaned a lot on Joyce’s mom to baby-sit our newborn when Joyce wasn’t there. You have no idea how difficult it is to keep a toddler quiet and in bed with an I.V. and a cast. We did take long walks down the hallways, or long wheelchair rides when she didn’t feel like walking, and always with an I.V. pole in tow. It was a time we will never forget and a cast we will never give up.

Yes. We have all the mother bracelets that the hospitals put on both mother and child when a child is born in the hospital. As much a keepsake as a birth certificate.

Toys are part of the treasure too. Trolls, dolls, charms.

Everything from brass doll furniture to die cast and rubber bicycles.

Toys are indeed treasure

My little Lynn Robinson. This is probably my oldest and dearest toy. Yes, mine. Not Joyce’s. In my lifetime I probably have owned every single playset that Marx toys ever made. I had all the army sets, WWII, Korea, Civil War, Fort Courage, Revolutionary War. I had the rare Cape Canaveral, Flintstone and Robin Hood sets. I had over 4,000 plastic figures including aliens, space figures and families (with the Marx Grocery and Supermarket). I had favorites: Dracula and wolf man from the movie monster figures. I also had several spacemen I kept, giving them names. One cowboy I named James and an army figure I named Greg. But this figure from the “Dolls of the World” figures (cast in styrene and not the regular plastic) was the only female I kept and became part of a small family of regulars I played with as a child. When I was twelve I put her up and locked her away.

She had such an impact on my youth I made drawings of her and even wrote a poem about her. Talk about influence. My daughter Lorna’s middle name was after this figure. I tried to give her away twice: once to Lorna and once to her daughter Gillian. Lynn is indeed a treasure but needs to be played with again. Someday.

Some toys are just mementos of days gone by. I have a lead WWI soldier that used to set in my grandmother Orthello Fout’s glass display case.

A brown plastic tiki was a gift from a friend who thought it would bring me luck.

I even have a memento of Church Camp at Lake St. Mary’s in 1966. It is a glow in the dark cross framed on a red back ground. A place where I met and fell in love with Mary Sue Heilman. She lived in Genoa, Ohio hundreds of miles away and thus I lost her forever the moment she went home.

I also have an oval name patch. Customed in the style of the Commercial Freight lines logo. My grandfather Johnathan Henry Fout was a truck driver before he built and maintained his own truck garage. He wore a patch like this too with his name. Thank you, Grandpa.

Treasure included military patches, rank, hats, medals. I have one Marine Corp belt.

Among medals I keep this one because the 1971 Hardin Northern Choir from Dunkirk, Ohio, which I was a part of, made Second in the state competition. I also have the 33-1/3 LP album we cut that year as part of our reward.

One item we keep is the only thing Joyce has from her childhood. Something she found lying in the dirt, hours before she would go to the hospital and remain there for almost a week.

This treasure really is a treasure. It is the”first” Elvis authorized necklace pendant released in 1956. The Elvis Collectible guide lists this on card with chain in mint for $3,500. I have seen one in this condition without card or chain sell on eBay for $40. Doesn’t matter it’s actual value. It is priceless in its sentimental value.

Our most precious treasures are the trinkets and gifts created for us by our children and grand-children. Like this little matchbook gift from Lorna to her mother. Even before she was known for her maker skills she was a skilled maker. A necklace charm cut and painted and drilled with the hands and fingers of love.

As you can see from just the few samples I have shown you, Joyce and I are rich beyond measure and we couldn’t possibly show it all here. Just know, treasure piles up every day in our lives.