What an incredible treasure! My grandmother, who turns 98 next month, is learning something new about her own mother who died 73 years ago.

A relative recently discovered these more-than 100-year-old school books that belonged to my great-grandmother! Schooling in the early 1900s concluded with 6th or 7th grade. Throughout her adulthood, it turns out, “Mamo” inscribed important family events inside these three books.

Jotted in the margins alongside literary classics like Don Quixote are the names of her children, including the birth of my grandmother in 1927. Among the eloquent prose of Ralph Waldo Emerson is a notation of the death of her father Frank Ebarb in 1924.

It was amazing to thumb through the delicate pages and spot so many familiar names from our family tree. We even thought “Mamo’s” handwriting looks remarkably similar to my own grandmother’s!