This series contains 12 volumes of Edith (Forbes) Perkins's scrapbooks and reminiscences of her family life from 1862 (two years before her marriage to Charles Elliott Perkins) to just before her death in the Santa Barbara earthquake in 1925. The volumes are entitled "A Grandmother's recollections found in a diary in an old hacienda on the banks of the Mississippi River," and contain letters, photographs, newspaper clippings, and some diary-like entries. The first volume covers the years 1862-1915 and gives some family history, including information on her childhood in Milton, Mass., early married life, and children. The family lived for many years at "The Apple Trees," a house in Burlington, Iowa. Correspondents include her father Robert Bennet Forbes, Charles Elliott Perkins, and other Perkins and Forbes family members.

This series contains 6 volumes of scrapbooks kept by Edith Forbes (Perkins) Cunningham, entitled "Letters of Many Years," containing both transcribed and original correspondence, photographs, comments and reminiscences, and other items concerning her childhood and later years. These volumes are addressed to her son Edward Cunningham, Jr. The volumes are arranged roughly in a chronological fashion from 1866 to 1938. The first volume covers the time period 1866-1899 and gives the history of her family life in Burlington, Iowa, at "the Apple Trees," including information on several years before she was born. After her marriage in 1892 to Edward Cunningham, the couple lived in Milton, Mass., and other eastern Massachusetts locations. Edith later lived part of the year in Santa Barbara, California. She returned to Massachusetts in 1938, the last year she kept a scrapbook. Correspondents include Edward Cunningham and other Perkins and Cunningham family members. Volume VI includes earlier typed memoirs of Robert Bennet Forbes and Charles Elliott Perkins.

There is also one folder of loose family material, probably gathered by Edward Cunningham, Jr., at the end of the collection that dates to 1967.