Shrine - Camilla Davis

I must admit that when the shrine project was introduced to the class, I was at a lost. In the back of my mind, throughout the entirety of the term, I was wrestling with myself to come up with an idea for what to memorialize. It was not until class on Monday, when we were asked to go around the room and say what we were dedicating our shrines to, that I finally came up with an idea. The words that came out of my mouth, when the time came, were not at all what I had expected: “my grandfather.” Until that moment, I had not even thought of honoring him with this shrine.

            

I had never met my grandfather because he had passed away before I was born. As such, he was not on the forefront of my mind as I was thinking about this project. By some sort of divine inspiration his name came out of my mouth when it was time to state our topics. Through the creation of this shrine, I thought deeply about the concept of being reminded in relationship to memory. The idea of reminders is repeated throughout my shrine just as I had to be reminded of the loss of my grandfather myself.

The form of my memorial is a cigar box containing five postcards. The significance of having five postcards represents him along with his wife and three children. The cigar box is representative of his career. He was entrepreneur and created a tobacco flavoring company. The company is still around today and the majority of my family continues to work there. It has been his greatest legacy and I am happy to be working there this summer. Contained within the box are five postcards depicting things and places that were meaningful to him. There is a duck which represents his love for hunting, a fish which represents his passion for fishing at our farm house, chickens which are representative of living on a farm as well as being a symbol for my grandmother, a horse track representing the tradition of going to horse races with my family and finally, a postcard of Baltimore from which he was born and raised.

On the backs of each postcard I have written a letter to my grandfather. Each postcard begins with a statement of why each picture reminded me of him and each note ends with the phrase, “I was reminded of you.” I decided to repeat the theme of reminders because I never was able to meet him but through stories from my family, I find little reminders of him throughout my life. The idea of reminders dually harkens back to how I was reminded of him when announcing for whom I was basing my shrine.

I plan on keeping this box in my room so that each time I see it I can be reminded of him and so that his legacy does not get lost to history. Additionally, I would like to continue to write to him. When I go abroad next year, I plan on getting postcards from the places I travel to, and to write him a note each time. Despite the fact that I have never been able to have a conversation with him, my hope is that by writing him letters, we are able to communicate.