49cents-- But her tears were Priceless

Early in April  while spending a mother son day with my 25 year old, we decided to hit every thrift store in Knoxville . My son Dakotah is a game nerd and loves collecting old and vintage games so that was what he was hunting for that day . Me on the other hand , I had no idea what I was searching for , it would just have to reach out and grab me and so it did . While looking in the book section , I saw this beautiful gem. It was a King James Version of the Bible , a Nelson.


                                                                  

                                                       

I was originally going to purchase the Bible , just because of what it is , it just didn't seem right to leave it on the shelf at a Goodwill. So I purchased the Bible for a mere 49cents.

                                   

When I got to the car, I started looking through the Bible and noticed this Bible has been used , which is a good thing , and their were also names written in the Bible. I automatically texted my friend Mary Dale and said "I have our next find , we have got to find the owner to this special piece"


During that week I had gotten sick, so it was up to my bestie Mary to investigate the Reed family . She found most were in Birmingham Alabama , but it took almost a full week for her to find the one Reed we needed to find "Jasmine" Mary was able to finally locate her sister who lived in Birmingham Ala and through her sister she was able to obtain Jasmine number.


Mary made the text to Jasmine and the next day Jasmine called Mary Dale and was so surprised and in tears that we had found her bible. She stated that she had moved a few years back and some how perhaps through her young children the Bible ended up in a wrong box and she had often wondered what had happened to her Bible. This Bible was very precious to her, because it was presented to her when her father Henry Reed passed away .


Mary explained to Jasmine who that we are and that we have this new hobby or gift that we try and find the owners to the heirloom and yes she wanted it back .
                                                              

Mary called me that evening and said "I found Jasmine" We have a road trip, she said you want to know where, its a long way away... NEPORT TN.. we just laughed because Newport is only half an hour away . But we didn't care, we knew how important this little gem would be to Jasmine.




                                                   

So when Mary , Emilee and I met Jasmine it was plain to see that the 49 cents that was spent on the Bible ,was worth it , because her tears and smiles were priceless . She clinged to the Bible and she explained it was the week of her fathers birthday anniversary . For that moment watching her hug that Bible was just as if she was hugging her daddy .


                                                   


Mary and I are so thankful for this beautiful new thing that we do , thus far we have met some wonderful families and hearing their story and seeing their faces light up to have that item back is well worth the drive to wherever it may be.

100 Years back in time *** Family Letters***

                                                                  

 Back in  the early part of March 2016, Mary , Emilee and I had went on a random road trip just for fun. We had decided to go to Mt Airy NC to visit the home of Andy Griffith . Of course along the drive, we were antsy and wanted to find some yard sales or flea markets and what do ya know , in a little country town called Fancy Gap was a road side flea market. Mary Dale zoomed the car right in . As we began scanning the tables, we saw a tupper ware box full of old old letters. We had to explain to Emilee this was email, FB and google back in the day . Knowing how letter writing is almost extinct anymore, Mary Dale and I wanted to purchase the letters. This is one of those things that we both liked so we decided to buy the "lot" of letters and split them. We actually had no idea what we were going to do with the letters , perhaps make some type of collage or something , but Im sure we would have figured it out .

              


The next day , I started looking at my batch of the old letters and I saw a trend, all the letters were written by one set or two sets of families that seemed to be related.hmmmmm, so I started to google the one name Clewell Howell.. come to find out he was a Presbyterian Minister in NC back in the 1800 's and  actually moved to Baltimore Maryland in the 1920's and was Marylands first Pediatric dentist ( and the office is still standing to this day in his honor) through his obituary  I was able to find he had a son , Clewell Howell the 11 and he was one of Marylands leading attorneys for the state in the 1950's and through his obituary , I was able to deem he had a son Clewell Howell 111 and by all reading it appears this son is still living .


I called Mary Dale and asked her to look at her letters and when she did she also saw that her batch of letters were the same families as my batch . I explained to her what I had found and we both agreed these letters were so old and so full of information , pictures , old news adds that yes , these letters need to be returned to their rightful owner.


I was able to find Mr. Clewell Howell the 3rd by the white pages on Google and made "the call" I explained the whole story and he was speechless. He  explained that yes he is part of the Howell family that I am explaining and yes the letters would indeed been letters that his grandparents and great grandparents had written so many years ago and yes, he would dearly love to have them. Mary and I felt these letters were so delicate we didn't want to chance them getting lost and ruined in the mail so we made this our first Finder and Seekers road trip .

                          

We left on a snowy Thursday evening and arrived at our hotel in Columbia Maryland around 8 pm , the next day , on Friday we spent touring Maryland going to Annapolis with my daughter Brittany and having lunch by the bay with an old dear friend Karen Beall  and my niece Lexi, we visited the Amish Market and later we met up and had a nice dinner with my sister in Law Lynn.

The next day Saturday , we had planned to me Mr. Howell at his home in Towson Md. My sister in law Lynn was the best she was our tour guide and ensured we made it safely through Maryland and we are so happy she was able to witness the hand over of the letters , it truly was special .

                                                

When we arrived at Mr. Howells home, he was still speech less and stated he told his brother "only two sweet Southern women would have done this" We made him a beautiful basket and he shared old pictures with us about his family and to keep history alive, he wanted to take us all out to lunch at the restaurant his father use to take him too.

                                 

After we left there, we spent the rest of the day with my sister in law Lynn and we thrifted at every store we could find and then went to dinner at Double T Diner with another old dear friend Jill Marr Griffin.
                                               

                               

This was our first journey of finding heirlooms and returning them to their families. It made our hearts so happy that it was then we realized we had a gift that when we come across something that has some meaning we def want  to try and give them back .

Friendship / Shared Faith and a God given Talent

My husband has always said "if you go through life and are able to count on one hand , even having just one person that is a true friend , then you have been blessed"  That is so , true. Although , Mary Dale Blalock and I have only been friends for about 10 years , it seems like it has been forever.  We were friends instantly. Actually, it was my husbands Aunt who introduced my husband Mark to Mary Dale's husband Scott , knowing they would become friends but little did she know that while Mark and Scott are still friends , Mary Dale and I became the closest of friends.


The Bible says in Proverbs 18;24 - " There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother" from this verse alone  we see there are two kinds of “friends.” There is the friend who exists because you have something to offer (such as a material gift or popularity-by-association), and there is a friend who exists due to genuine love and friendship,Proverbs offers a contrast between these two types of friends. You can amass as many friends of the first type as you want but still come to ruin; however, even one friend of the second type is a great advantage.

The genuine or authentic friend is someone who sticks closer than a brother. In other words, he or she can be counted on. This friend is steadfast; he or she will be there for you even more so than a family member. A friend who sticks closer than a brother is a trustworthy friend, indeed. That is Mary Dale and I .


We have cried together, suffered sadness together, shared a faith together, many meals together and we have had a few little squabbles along the way , but very few. We have shared so many laughs and giggles and we can just look at each other and automatically know what the other one is thinking .


One of our most favorite things to do is being thrifty, we love a good bargain and Im not talking about the clearance rack at Coach or Macy's etc.. Im talking about the thrill of the hunt at a yard sale, a flea market , a thrift store  we never really truly have an agenda as to what we are looking for , we just know it when we see it . The thing is, our taste are so similar that we often are looking at the same thing to purchase but the friends that we are we will allow the other one to take it knowing she will want it more .  Mary is the Pilot in our relationship and I am the Co-Pilot , she is the driver and I am the Navigator, we never know where we will end up on our road trips . Some days we hit the MOTHER LOAD of sales and other days NOTHING, but every time we spend together is always joyful and uplifting. We have been doing this for years .




                                                                      

Recently , we believe that the Lord has handed us a new talent , we at first called it a hobby , but our little sidekick , Emilee Blalock  ( Mary's daughter ) actually corrected us and said "No its not a hobby, its a gift "
                                                               

 I have watched Emilee grow up, I remember meeting her when she was just in 3rd grade and now she is completing her first year of high school. Emilee ,has been the best back seat pilot with our journeys and trips and as she is enduring the tumultuous years of high school where kids can be cruel and mean , I am glad she is able to see and witness with her mother and I want true friendship is and know that it is real and she is very intelligent , so when Emilee corrected Mary and I said "NO its not a hobby , it is a gift " Mary Dale and I  talked about it and we both prayed and we both believe that the Lord has given us a talent a gift.  We have been collecting heirlooms and trying to find the homes to these heirlooms , little did we know where these little gems would take us , we have only begun our Finders and Seekers but we are batting 200% right now .


We will be blogging about our find and road trips and the people whom we have met along the way and what a blessing it has been. We have had a few negative remarks such as "I cant believe you drove all that way just to deliver letters or a Bible to that family" "How are you all able to afford it " well , neither Mary nor I are rich by any means , that is why we feel that the little pearls we find, that the Lord must have a  hand in it , because  we always are able to make it work without , taking from our families. When the Lord says there is more happiness in giving that receiving , for those who have questioned what we are doing , we would say , just try it , seeing and hearing the families of how happy they were and are just makes our hearts explode .


                                                                   

The next blog will be about our first adventure and there will be one to follow on our upcoming 2nd adventure ...


We hope you will enjoy our stories:) Thelma and Louise and little Thelmaouisa 
Mary Dale, Karen and Emilee