Treasured Items

I have paused in my research about my Grandma and her journey from Latvia to England in the early 1900s to consider some of the practical issues that, fortunately, have never, to date, affected my life. One issue that I have spent some time ruminating over is, how did my Grandma and her brothers and sisters decide what to leave behind them and, more importantly, what treasured items to take with them when they set out on this foreboding trip?

The only item that I remember the family referring to as 'Russian' was a huge feather quilt. This was when I was small girl, in the days before duvets, when people in England slept under sheets and blankets. Every winter that feather quilt was placed onto my bed, over the blankets but under the counterpane. I loved it. It was snuggly warm and made me feel secure under its weight. 

Though they were never referred to as 'from Latvia', there was always a pair of candle sticks and a small silver wine goblet (or bekher as it is referred to in Yiddish) on Grandma's sideboard. These were items used on a Friday evening to welcome in the Sabbath and I can only assume that they were part of the treasured belongings. The bekher has been so well polished over the years that the engravings can hardly be seen but they are of typical buildings from the shtetls (small Jewish Eastern European villages).

Grandma did not know what kind of journey she would have to endure and so would need to keep packing to a minimum but how does anyone decide what to take, what to leave behind? I appreciate that the family were very poor and so would have had few belongings, but there must have been small treasured items, something that Grandma maybe slipped into her pocket when no one else was looking, that made the journey with her.

So what would I take with me if, sadly, I had to make such a journey? Of course, life has changed dramatically in the last hundred or so years. I would grab my phone and Ipad even though I'd not expect there to be Internet access out at sea but what else would I pack? What would be that little item that I slipped into my pocket? A photograph of my family? A small teddy bear for comfort? A prayer book maybe, or a book of uplifting thoughts? What would you pack under such circumstances? And what would be that treasured item that you slipped into your pocket when no one else was looking?