The mystery of how all the heavy books got on top of the only entrance to the attic has not been solved to this day, as we found no other entry to the Belmont apartment attic.

We hauled the boxes to a barn that Giles V.(my brother) and I had built on a farm we jointly owned. The barn was located near where the water tower at the Isle de Boise State Park is now. It would take us forty-five minutes to get across various landowner’s properties over to the barn after leaving the county road. The property was land-locked, there were no public roads to the property. We simply had no other place to take the loads of books and valuables, we just couldn’t let it go as trash. Billie took off south to Houston and I went north to Aubrey.

I have often wondered if anyone ever went to the barn and helped themselves to anything. Maybe not, as there was nothing that appeared to be of great value.

I have spent the last twenty-five years sorting through this old pile of valuable records. Looking through this mountain of printed matter, I found it contained much family history, as well as, lots of history of Onega, including old photographs. I know other families of Onega might have had similar treasures that may have been lost, as I know how close this treasure of information was almost missed by us.

Many of the old books and papers came from the northwest bedroom of Grandma’s house. It was seldom used because it was too cold to sleep in during the winter and too hot to use in the summer. We didn’t like it as children because it was dark, gloomy and smelled musty with all the old boxes of books and papers neatly stacked up.

There are indeed more family mysteries, but all this was just barely discovered at the Belmont apartment. It makes me feel all this was preordained and made possible by the efforts of others before me. It also feel I was the intended party to receive the treasured books, newspapers and photographs. I recently discovered some old Galveston newspapers which date back to1858, that were produced by the A.H. Belo Corporation. I have found papers from San Antonio dated 1873-1876. The condition of these papers is surprisingly good and I will be able to unearth clues concerning people and places of that time.