Since no one is traveling much right now, let’s check out when our families did.

Both the Hegeler and the Carus families were world travelers and with the Hegeler’s 8 or the Carus’ 6 children, it took a lot of containers to hold everything. Up in our attic, we have what is fondly referred to as the “Trunk Room”. It is one of the high points on our Whole House Tours. There is such a variety of trunks up there and just imagine the stories they could tell.

Trunks, trunks and more trunks. These are about 2/3rds of the trunks. There are more along another wall. You can see a number of steamers in here.

The curved-top one is a camel-back. Only the wealthy traveled with camel-backs. The crews on ships, trains, etc. would just pile everyone’s heavy trunks on top of each other. Don’t want yours to get crushed? Make certain yours goes on top by adding a camel-back hump to it so nothing can be put on top of it!

The rectangular, very sturdy one is a Steamer Trunk. They were loaded into the (wait for it…) steam rooms of ships. The latches on some of the trunks are amazing. When you think about what would be in the trunks, it makes sense that they would need to be very secure.