When my mother died in 1995, it took a month for us to clean out her Brooklyn apartment. Growing up in Montreal during the Great Depression, she had a phobia about throwing anything away; her philosophy was, "You never know when you'll need it."

Among her souvenirs were several copies of the July 27, 1956, issue of the Montreal Star, one of the English-language newspapers from her hometown. The headlines screamed of the horrific sinking of the SS Andrea Doria off the Massachusetts coast the day before; many of the survivors had been brought to nearby Canadian ports. In all, 46 died and more than 100 were injured, but more than 1,600 were rescued.

Pressed for time, I put the papers in the "keep" pile; they ended up in a suitcase that was eventually stored in my attic.

A few months ago, while on a cleaning jag, I rediscovered the newspapers. Why had my mother kept them, I wondered? Was it simply because the shipwreck was such an earth-shaking event? Did she know someone who was on the Andrea Doria? A casualty? A survivor? Was she perhaps a passenger, but never told us?

I sat down and went through it, page by page, fascinated by the "time-capsule" effect of old advertisements (new refrigerators for $149), sports (the Royals, the Brooklyn Dodgers' top minor league team, were in fifth place that day), television listings (The Honeymooners at 8 p.m., Gunsmoke at 10), and comics ("Dennis the Menace" has aged quite nicely over 50-plus years).

It got so I was even looking at the page of "Births, Marriages and Deaths."

And there it was.

And it all made sense. What woman wouldn't want to hold on to her wedding announcement?

I've kept newspapers and magazines containing historical events myself: Man walks on the moon, the Mets win the 1969 World Series, Nixon resigns. Occasionally I cull from my "collection" items that have lost their relative importance with the passing of time.

But I think I'll hold on to this one a little longer.