Rose had a lot of neat little things that I and the rest of the family were often not aware of. Obviously little treasures that meant a lot to her. There may have been one or two that some of us had seen briefly before, but most were tucked away in a pocket or perhaps in a drawer, known only to her. As time went on I kept finding these special items and some of them are presented here.

This one is self explanatory. You can tell it has been carried with her for a long time.

 

The cross is actually a small wooden cross in between the laminate.

 

 

This is a small palm sized angel embedded in clear plastic, almost like glass. She carried it in her pocket as well, everywhere she went. She always said "I can't go anywhere without my angel."

I now carry it in my pocket. "I can't go anywhere without my angel!"

 

This is probably the most used prayer that Rose had in her collection. St. Anthony is known for finding things, and finding things very quickly. You can see this one shows some signs of wear and tear.

She often used the short version, something to the effect "St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please come down, somethng is lost and can't be found."

Whether she lost something herself, or one of us lost something, I can tell you it worked - every time!

There is a little joke that goes with this one, when we were landscaping our back yard many years ago, the wheel came off a fairly new wheelbarrow. Seems the nut and bolt came loose and was lost in all the dirt. Searching for a period of time I was getting pretty frustrated.

"Ask St. Anthony" she says. "You ask him", I reply. She went inside briefly came back out and said, "There it is over there." And sure enough it was. "Well you just go back in and tell St. Anthony to find the other nut," I snapped.

Well it turned out the last laugh was on me - for years - as the axle on that wheelbarrow only had one nut, unlike the other one that was here.

She took great pleasure telling that story many times saying St. Anthony always did his job - the story of one nut looking for the other nut she said.

 

Found in her jewelry box, this had been published in a newspaper at one time.

 

I know she had a lot of little special prayers that she more or less kept to herself. I am not sure of the significance of this one and several others in her collection.

I only learned the importance of these items to her as I find similar ones in various locations previously known only to her.

It sounds like this one should have went with her. I had never seen it before. It was hanging unnoticed in the special place where kept all her crosses hanging.

At least her favourite cross that she used most often was placed in her hands by one of our sons during her final moments.

It stayed with her forever.