Travelling through time *Buried treasure found in ashes!

Last Wednesday, a group of engineers found a box in a building they were reconstructing. This box contained: newspapers dated to the 18^th century a very old pair of shoes, some love notes, various photographs from a hunting in the 19^th century, letters addressed to a dancer, wedding, birth and death certificates, more photographs about different families in different times, and a book recording the names of a family. Everything was covered with dust.

The engineers and architects were surprised to discover this box due to the fact that this home is nowadays almost in ruins. This building has entered to a program to rehabilitate architecture in the district of “Roma”. Its framework is barely holding the edifice, and it was mostly surprising to find the box because luckily one of the engineers, Roberto Pérez, entered the house to save anything from being destroyed. He said: “I couldn’t keep myself from entering the house. All these houses have so many memories, I’m glad we could save somebody’s history.” If he had not cared about the content, this box wouldn’t have survived the reconstruction.

Information was obtained about the history of the past owners of the box. There is a lot of information about the family in the box itself. The little notebook in which the names are written gives us the names of three generations. Their names were Vicente, Jesus and again Vicente. From this last man we know he was a priest, who created his own school. We know this because he wrote a book about theology which is also kept in the box. Other quite interesting papers are the newspapers. One of them is dated to the moment in which Maximilian Habsburg got toMexico, and it narrates the events followed to his arrival, and the speech he gave. It’s very impressive to see a newspaper talking about a date so long ago, talking as if it were the present. Another old object found, was one newspaper which talks about why there should be coeducation schools. It gives a very conservative point of view, which at that time was one of the most liberal and eccentric ones. In contrast, in that same newspaper there’s also a poem about the seasons.

We are not certain about the family this box belongs now. However, we want to find them. If you know anyone whose surname is Valencia or Rocha, please contact us.

Eva Marina Valencia

septiembre 2009