Melgar has stated it nicely, as have you Arnold. Your respective examples are very nice to see. Good sharing!
For me, to begin with (because there are several examples of such modeling on my layout,) I modeled this homestead of my wife's. That is she, as a little girl in a favorite red outfit of hers when she was a child, on the front porch, reaching for the doorknob, and that is a figure representing her father, standing behind her, protecting her, as he did throughout her young life. Even his hat counts as a memorializing since he often wore a fedora like it.
The model of her house is an exact replica of their actual house, crafted for me by an architect friend.
I modeled the trolley into the neighborhood because of my maternal grandfather having been a motorman when I was a boy, of that exact type of trolley, for he always let me aboard for a free ride when I was around any of his stops...
Even the Chevy parked at curbside is a sentimental mentioning of her first car as a young college-graduate, parked there ready to take her into her future of success and prosperity.
The milkman and milk-truck are present to honor a dear friend, in our adulthood, who owns a milk delivery company and delivers milk, to this day.
FrankM, a sentimental guy
