No Grandmother's Trunk in the Attic; Grandmother and Grandfather in the Attic!

As she was growing up, Marash Girl loved to read novels about girls her age, novels in which girls her age were the hero -- yes, the hero! ( NOT the heroine!)  Mystery novels, adventure novels, travel novels . . . In particular, Marash Girl remembers a novel entitled SAND IN HER SHOES . . . a novel about a New England girl who had to move with her family to Florida, and sort out the difficulties for a New England girl  adjusting to celebrating Christmas in Florida.  She (the girl in the novel, not Marash Girl) finally figured it out, and lived (Marash Girl hopes) happily ever after.  Okay, back to the subject at hand.  What was difficult for Marash Girl was reading about the girls who would go up to their attics and find there in the attic an old trunk, a trunk full of mementos from the past -- dresses from when their grandmothers were young, little trinkets from the old days, books, written diaries . . . Marash Girl, of course (you know why, right?), could find none of that.  She had much better.  She had her grandmother and grandfather living on the third floor (finished attic with full bath and the only walk-in shower in the house) in two beautiful attic rooms of the two family house in which she grew up.  But her grandmother and grandfather were silent.  Never did they talk about their experiences in the old country during the "aksoroutioun", as it was called in those days . . .