At a loss for what to get for her birthday last week, Anna Lashbrook's family decided to give her a fortune full of treasured memories.
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A small wooden box with a hurriedly written inscription on the side, a saw baring her grandfather's name and a series of draftsman's plans to a house that now stands only in her fondest memories.
These were the ingredients to building a new life when her grandparents left wartorn Ukraine for Australia in the 1950s.
Now deceased, the relics of their former days live on with Ms Lashbrook at her home in Junee.
The box holds particular significance. Handmade and hand-painted, obviously in a hurry, it once carried the couple's entire worldly goods as they ventured onto the boat that would take them to a new life in Australia.
"They must have seen something, some advertisement or something that talked about coming to Canada or Australia," Ms Lashbrook said.
"The paperwork to come to Australia came through first."
Crudely put together, the box holds the whispers of the family's hopes and aspirations.
"Timber was hard to come by, I think they turned an old wardrobe into this box," Ms Lashbrook said.
"They found some paint to write their name and destination on it. It's not neat, and that drives my dad crazy, but I like it. I think it shows that it was done in a hurry as they boarded the boat.
"It didn't have to be perfect, it just had to be done."
Arriving in Australia, the young couple spent months in the company of other recent arrivals at the Bonegilla Migrant Camp.
"When my grandparents arrived in Australia, they lived in a migrant camp a few hours from here," Ms Lashbrook said.
"At the time, they had a toddler and my grandmother was heavily pregnant."
That particular chapter of the family's life ended in tragedy when the newborn died in hospital months later.
"A lot of babies died of diarrhea due to the un-refrigerated milk back then, and unfortunately that baby boy died at just three months old," Ms Lashbrook said.
"Death was so common then, it was always present. Some would have died on the boat out that took about four months to get Australia."
In recent years, Ms Lashbrook and her young family visited the Bonegilla Migrant Camp to walk in the footsteps of her grandparents.
"My babushka [grandmother] only ever spoke fondly of the camp, but when we got there we read diary entries and accounts from people who described it as a prison," Ms Lashbrook said.
"Maybe it came down to attitude. I think they were just so grateful to be given things they'd never had in Ukraine. Back at home, they were eating scraps from the grocers, potato peels and sleeping eight to a bed."
After enduring the camp for months, Ms Lashbrook's grandparents were given permission to set up a home in Wagga.
They set to work on building a house at number 15 The Boulevard, Kooringal. The draftsman's plans now in Ms Lashbrook's possession are all that remains of the home now.
"The house is gone, but these papers are the beginning of their story," Ms Lashbrook said.
"I remember visiting them in the house, they were always growing something, cooking for people and having people over."
Though her grandfather died when she was only eight years old, his legacy has shaped Ms Lashbrook's future. The saw she received, which once belonged to her grandfather, she will now use to honour his memory in the best way she can.
"I think we'll build a dining room table with it. Food and family - that's the common threat through their story," she said.
"The house is gone, they are now gone, but I can put my hand on the saw, where his hand was, and it's like he's still here."
Now with three children of her own, Ms Lashbrook is keeping the memories of her pioneering grandparents alive using the things they left behind.
"My husband and I now have three children, our eldest two met my babushka but they were young. Her ashes are now in our kitchen, and they talk as if she's there," she said.
"They're forming a relationship with these items and remembering my grandparents.
"Especially at this time [in history], I find it grounding to think of my family and what they went through to get here. There was always hope. I think maybe there is a benefit to everyone retracing their family history to find those gems of hope."