My mother-in-law was a very disciplined person. That’s putting it mildly. A public school music supervisor, she would do a spring cleaning every year when school ended. And what a cleaning it was. She would start at the top of the house, taking up rugs, taking down curtains, scrubbing from ceiling to floor.

If I can judge by what I know of her husband — and her son, my husband — I don’t think she got much help. But you can bet that when she finished, the wooden venetian blinds were dust-free and the cellar floor pristine. Then she would start her vacation.

Having boot-strapped herself to an education and a place in the middle class, she had little patience for people with less energy or determination. Born in 1901 and a hereditary Republican, she was clear about her views on almost everything. She was, again to put it mildly, judgmental and did not hesitate to express her opinions, most memorably her disapproval, about important matters such as housekeeping and child-rearing.

After she retired from teaching, as might be expected, she did not relax. Now a widow, she kept up her house and garden, and traveled to visit her sons and grandchildren. And she traveled. Just as determined in her travels as in everything else, she wanted to see the world well beyond her working life in upstate New York. So when my husband and I and our two boys spent a year’s sabbatical in Rome, she came to stay in the spring. A few years later, she came to stay with us in London. But she also went on tours — around Europe and eventually around the world.

Recently I came across her travel journals, remarkable for their thoroughness and for the legible cursive writing in which they were written. She was a chronicler, no question, mentioning every sight seen, every city visited, every meal eaten. What an exercise in dutifulness. As I copied out a sample from the small white leatherette book with gold letters on the cover spelling “Bon Voyage,” I realized that she had filled each 4”x6” page from top to bottom and not beyond. One day, one page. Here she is on her tour in Paris, July 5. I am exhausted just reading it.

Had breakfast at St. James Hotel. Walked up to Place del’Opéra and took tour of new Paris — including Napoleon’s Tomb — Place des Invalides — Arc de Triomphe — Montmartre — Sacré Coeur — Madeline Church. Met Mrs. Moore and 2 daughters from Boston — had lunch at PamPam together. Expensive for snack. Went to their hotel then took p.m. tour to Louvre — terrible crowd — could hardly keep in sight of guide — later to Cathedral of Notre Dame — beautiful rose windows — back by Bastille—Île de la Cité — State Buildings — Sorbonne. Took rest and walked all way up Champs Elysees to Arc de Triomphe. Ate at Fogmets [??]. Very expensive taxi home. Very cold.

I don’t believe Marion Pritchard ever kept a journal of her “ordinary” life. I think she would have scoffed at keeping track of her daily routine or her teaching life. But the travel journals seemed important because out of the ordinary. The same sense of priorities held when, to my dismay, she got rid of all of her son’s letters except for the ones he wrote while traveling with a band in Europe.

For some years now I have been the archivist for my side of the family, even writing at length about my family of origin. But these days, I write less while spending considerable mental effort trying to decide what ought to be kept. A year ago, I gathered some of the more important documents, letters and other memorabilia from my side of the family, boxed them up and sent them to our youngest son, who also tends toward remembering.

Still, as I look over many remaining boxes of letters from my parents, as well as the ones they saved that I wrote to them, I find it hard to imagine what ought to be kept. I am not attached to many objects, rather have been trying for a while to get rid of “stuff” that we don’t use — clothes, kitchen utensils, crockery. But the problem is with paper — letters, historical documents, books. File cabinets and shelves groan under the weight.

The archivist in me says save all paper that tells of family history. The housekeeper says, toss out whatever you think no one will care about. So should we keep my mother-in-law’s small journals marked Rome, Tel Aviv, Calcutta? Should I send them to our archivist son? To one of my husband’s brother’s children, who remember their grandmother vividly? I leave the question out there.

Marietta Pritchard lives in Amherst and can be reached at mppritchard@comcast.net.