U.S. Grant, old folks, crazy wife and silver

Wom 27

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We finally had to put my 95 year old mother in law in assisted living.hard thing to do. They gave my wife three weeks to clean out her large apartment. My wife is having a hard time parting with anything right down to the dozens of planters in the place. Good Will, the Free store, the Green Drop, our home, any place but the trash. She doesn’t believe in land fills so it’s a perfect storm that’s affecting us at an age when we don’t need it but there’s no talking sense to her because her mom is dying and if we have to live like bums, so be it!
Anyway, she gives me a baggie full of foreign coins. The dates are all over the place and I don’t know what I’m looking at though I’m sure the 1874 maybe Polish coin is silver. So I take them to my guy he goes thru them fast as I knew he would, puts a half dozen to the side, they’re silver, and the rest are.common including then1874 which wasn’t silver but nickel ! He sells the foreign coins by the pound and gives me $15 for the lot. I’m ok with that. He give me an 1879 token made by the employees of the Phila.mint to honor US Grant who came thru Philly on his way back home.
After two terms as president, he had enough (go figure), and took almost three years to see the world with his wife It’s an interesting story about Grant. My coin guy said he knew I liked history and I should look up the story of the token when he gave it to me and he was right.
In the end, I made some room in my home and got paid !! Now if she would only let me sell her mothers bedroom set ! C020E232-3CF1-4847-89CA-D1F648B76F8C.jpg
 
I need to answer my post to show a picture of the front of the token. By the way, did they spell employees different in 1879 ?47533B46-8DF9-41E2-BCD5-D3DA1CCCE350.jpg
 
Very nice token - yes, I have seen employee spelled with one "e" on the end in old books and newspapers before. Don't know why it was changed. There's another interesting story about Grant. He developed cancer (oral cancer, I think) and while dying of cancer wrote his Memoirs (Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant). The public made it a best seller and the proceeds helped support him and his family. He was apparently in bad financial shape before the book was published. My grandparents had a copy of his memoirs.
 
Very sorry to hear about your MIL’s declining health - definitely a tough time your wife will be going through.

The Grant token is quite cool though - doubly cool for me because that parade occurred on my birthday...plus ninety odd years, of course :grin: There’s a surprising amount of detail that can be found just on the Grant visit to Philly that day and the parade - this newspaper has a full rundown not only of the order of procession for the parade, but also a full description of two occasions in which Grant was gracious enough not to smoke his cigar while a lady was present :lol:

Anyway, thanks for sharing!
 
Very nice token - yes, I have seen employee spelled with one "e" on the end in old books and newspapers before. Don't know why it was changed. There's another interesting story about Grant. He developed cancer (oral cancer, I think) and while dying of cancer wrote his Memoirs (Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant). The public made it a best seller and the proceeds helped support him and his family. He was apparently in bad financial shape before the book was published. My grandparents had a copy of his memoirs.
written by mark twain I believe !
 
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