It is fortunate to me that someone thought to hang on to that note since I have become interested in genealogy and this was a fairly significant event in family history (had he not died I don't suppose I would be around since it was her second marriage that gave me my grandfather).
I long for scraps of anything that my dead relatives, wrote, created, etc. It connects me better to the past — the lives they lived, how they lived them. It somehow grounds me a little better ... well, it's rather hard to explain the draw of genealogy.
Sadly very little of the ephemera of everyday life was kept. I get it. It might have seemed like hanging on to junk mail — like you were a hoarder or whatever, but in this digital era we should be able to hold terabytes of what may appear to be ephemera.
I'm doing what I can – not for ego, I think, but for future generations that may find a connection to their past interesting.