The Button Box: The Importance of a Family Archive

Elena LaVictoire discusses the curation of a family archive. What sentimental items do you treasure?

Sis and I sat in the middle of the farmhouse living room, packing up boxes and bins. We were trying to pack up 40 years’ worth of our grandparents’ belongings in one weekend. It was a daunting task. Sis is a ruthless packer and organizer. With her sharpened practicality she quickly assigned stacks of clothing, papers, and other utilities into the trash pile. I tend to be a bit more sentimental. I quietly stashed a stack of old Look magazines away, as well as a Lithuanian cookbook that had been well used. I thought I would read them later. Unfortunately, I do not read Lithuanian, but still …  

I could see Sis peering at my Keep pile and decided to move the items to my car before she successfully coaxed (or chided) me into giving them to the garbage heap. We worked quietly throughout the morning. Going through the belongings of a deceased loved one can be fraught with emotion. Luckily for us, there was so much stuff that we had no choice but to approach this task as a real job.  

We kept our focus until mid-afternoon, when under a pile of half-finished dresses, patterns and a box of material we found it: the button box. The button box was nothing special by earthly standards. It was an old fruitcake box that had been repurposed by my grandma for housing her buttons. An avid seamstress, the box was stuffed with buttons. Some were brand new and still on their cardboard cards. Obviously, they were meant for some of these half-made projects. It was kind of fun to try and guess which buttons were for which dress.

But there were tons of other buttons too: extras from my first Communion dress, some sparkly ones for a costume I wore in 2nd grade, pearly white dots for night gowns she made for me and my sister when we were in middle school. Of course, the blue and gray buttons were ones that came from my grandpa’s work shirts. Since both had survived the Great Depression, they saved everything. Just because a shirt was old and stained didn’t mean you couldn’t save the buttons.  

This was something even my very practical sister couldn’t bring herself to throw away. Every item in it was worth its weight in emotions and happy memories. By saving it we were acting as curators of our family archive. I got to take it home. The fruitcake box finally disintegrated after years of use. I replaced it with another one purchased specifically for that purpose. I’ve also added to it over the years. I always get a few more buttons than I really need. 

The Family Archive 

The button box is an example of my family’s archive. It is something that said something about the earlier years of my family. It definitely went into the save pile. In a way, what my sister and I were doing that day was curating the things of our family. We were deciding what had memory and meaning, and what was ready to be purged.  

The French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, said that archives act as prosthetic memory for human beings. I think that’s very true. Sis and I couldn’t necessarily remember every detail of the buttons in that box. Human memory is frail and fleeting. But we could strongly remember what it was like to be with grandma on sewing days, and how fun it was to look, count and play with those buttons. The buttons were a part of her essence, and an artifact of our childhood. Finding it brought all of that back to us. By saving it, we were curators. 

But Derrida also said that part of archiving was making decisions about what to keep and what to purge. He called this “archival trauma.” And it is a trauma. I didn’t really want to get rid of that Lithuanian cookbook because I’m sure my grandma used it. But it sold at a yard sale to someone who knew what it was and how to read it. It wasn’t wasted; it was repurposed. 

Archiving the Holidays 

This Advent and Christmas season, I am aiming to add meaningful memories to my family archives. Photos and videos are certainly part of that (although honestly, some of those should eventually be purged and organized as well). But the things I give that I am most proud of are the things that will bring back happy emotions and memories years from now. Some of the items people were the happiest with were ornaments commemorating births, engagements, weddings, anniversaries, and memorials to family members and beloved pets. The items of greatest value just involve curating — not necessarily money.  

My wish for all of you is that you find your own version of the Button Box.  

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Copyright 2025 Elena LaVictoire
Images: (top, bottom) Canva; (center) Deposit Photos, licensed by author