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Picture day hand-me-down sweater has changed hands for 61 years

When most people think of family heirlooms that get passed down from generation to generation, perhaps the visions of an antique wedding dress, an old photo album, a quilt, or a precious piece of jewelry come to mind. But for one family in Indiana, the family heirloom is a great picture day sweater that’s been handed down from one generation to the next for 61 years.

The current owner of the sweater is seven-year-old boy Brady Gose, who wore the sweater to his first grade picture day last week, the same way his father Chuck did back in 1982. The sweater’s journey began back in 1954, when Brady’s great uncle wore it. Brady’s grandfather then got the sweater four years later and ever since then it’s made its way around.

The youngest of the sweater wearers, Brady already knows he’s going to hand it down to his children someday, and seeing it, out of the box on picture Day 33 years after it was put into storage caused him to ask questions about Grandpa Gose (Chuck’s dad) who passed away in 1999 and never got to know his grandson.

Now that the story of the 61-year-old hand-me-down sweater has spread across the continent, young Brady thinks he can be more famous than another guy named Brady…Tom Brady, the quarterback of the NFL’s New England Patriots. Who knew a sweater could hold so much star power?

Passing down a family heirloom is a great way to teach the next generation about where they come from. It’s a discussion that many of us neglect to have or even inquire about, yet we could all learn so much about ourselves through learning about the legacy that those who came before us left behind.

Of course family heirlooms don’t always have to hold some kind of sentimental or financial value. Deborah Skipper’s family is passing down the world’s oldest potato. Both the picture day sweater and the world’s oldest spud serve to show that you can’t put a price on family history, no matter how your family in particular chooses to teach you about it.