Before Trish Johnson and her crew opened the door on The World’s Largest Time Capsule her father, Harold “Budd” Davisson, had sealed up in 1975, people were asking one question.
Will there be another time capsule for the future?
Johnson is now saying yes.
With inspiration from longtime Seward teacher and school librarian Opal Bowmaster, who in 1975 designed a project for her fourth-grade students to submit to the time capsule, Johnson is now making plans for a capsule that would be opened in conjunction with the 4th of July in 2076 when the United States celebrates its 300th anniversary or tricentennial.
Her father often said he wanted his grandchildren to know in 2025 what life was like in 1975, so Johnson is replicating the genealogy project Bowmaster had her students, now around 60, submit to the capsule.
The fourth graders filled out a four-generation family tree and wrote a letter to their future grandchildren.
“These letters were treasured by the families in 2025 when the capsule was opened,” Johnson said. “The people who got the letters from the Bowmaster project were absolutely thrilled, even the boys who did not write anything.
“It seems to me to be a logical way forward.”
She is inviting anyone to submit a family tree and letter and has made available an instruction sheet with a blank family tree on the back for people to get started. Those are available at Davisson Furniture Center and have been posted on The World’s Largest Time Capsule Facebook page.
The original time capsule and pyramid remain on display near Johnson’s home on East Hillcrest Drive, but that is not where the new letters will be stored.
Johnson said if she gets 20 envelopes she will place them in a safe deposit box. If she gets 20,000 “we will come up with another alternative.”
The family tree and letter to the grandchildren should be placed in an envelope with the name of a family member on it who is to receive the letter or would know where the letter recipient might be 50 years from now.
Completed family trees and letters can be returned to The Time Capsule, PO Box 465, Seward NE, 68434, or to the furniture store.
Johnson said one thing they learned from the letters placed in The World’s Largest Time Capsule in the 1970s is the effect coins had on paper in those stored envelopes. The coins made the paper disintegrate faster, so she is asking people not to include any with the letters.
