Mary Beth Petr keeps her family Bible on a special prayer stand wrapped with an old curtain cord.

Petr’s Bible was a gift to her great-grandfather and great-grandmother on their wedding day in 1893. Unlike many of the Bibles featured, she knows the full history of the “Brandon” family Bible. Her grandfather was 40 when her mother was born (during his second marriage), and she says that because the generations were so far apart, the history of the Bible has been easily passed down because it has had to pass through fewer people. Petr has a special prayer stand on which she displays the Bible, though she keeps it wrapped up in a gold rope — a relic from old curtains — to protect the well-worn spine from curious hands.