We had a sibling meeting today at Mom's house. The plan was to go through the house and tag items with sentimental value. It was like herding dust-bunnies with a blow-drier.
It is pretty clear to me that we need one area to stage items destined for the landfill. It could be a trailer that we fill up before the trash-dumpster shows up.
We also need a staging area for items that still have enough value to donate. That will probably be the garage (to keep them out of the weather).
Without the two staging areas we are locked up by a chicken-or-egg dilemma. The trash-dumpster is pricey and nobody craves marathon sessions sorting through the artifacts in Mom (and Dad's) house.
Items:
- Sets of exquisite Japanese table-ware
- Maruska prints (now collectables)
- Tackle boxes filled with "antique" fishing lures
- Brass goblets, cups, tea-pots and...well, brass everything
- Sets of ruby-red glassware
- Sets of iridescent glassware
- Rolls of vinyl "naugahyde" upholstering material
- Tools, tools more tools. Some are 12V battery tools others are a mix of hand and corded power tools.
- Lumber
- Fluorescent light tubes
- Family photographs
- Pots and pans
- Glass jars
- Pictures
- Books
- VHS tapes and DVDs
- Harmony House Green Sage pattern that belonged to Mom's mom and dad
- Electric motors
- Tile
- Rolls of electric wire
- Maxwell Parrish prints
- Containers of bulk spices
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| "Truth" can be found in books. Savoring the weight of "Truth" comes from callouses, sweat, tears and wounds. |
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| Everything my Dad wrote can be found in books published hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. But this is what his callouses, sweat, tears and wounds centered in his focal plane. Trite? Not to his son. |
I came home with a few dozen canning jars, a hammered aluminum roasting pan and some pictures of letters found in the family Bible. I suspect that Dad wrote the page of thoughts in the images show above when he realized he was slipping more rapidly into dementia. He wanted to leave a time-capsule or markers beside the trail.
Other family members will archive the family photos.
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When my maternal Grandmother died,each of her descendants were allowed to select two items which held sentimental value to us. I chose two cast iron implements, a stove top legless dutch oven which I remembered Grandma cooking vast amounts of oxtail soup, Caldo de Res and other savory dishes. The other was a Wagner deep walled skillet, about 10" in diameter. During the Great Depression when her family picked crops across the country, she cooked family meals over wood fires with this.
ReplyDeleteShe has been gone since 1986, but her legacy still goes on.
Do you mean Maxfield Parrish primts? Love them.
ReplyDeleteBoat Guy
The wife lost both of her parents last year so this rings true. The dust is settling now and everything was good with everyone involved. Yes, the family legacy will live on.
ReplyDeleteHTR
We (I) cleaned out the house in the fall. Was traumatic for me. I threw away glasses and dishes I was unfit to touch as a kid (you'll break them!) Throwing them in the dump because there was no time to sell or even give away, broke something inside me. Take your time, savor the smells and dust.
ReplyDeleteLove your dad writings -- I'd frame them.
ReplyDeleteMy last month paycheck was for 11000 dollars…e work from comfort at home for 3-4 hours/day and they paid me for it 95 bucks every hour…..> https://www.pay.salary49.com
ReplyDeleteWe lost Dad to vascular dementia in 2018, and had moved him to a care facility two years prior. Due to me and my siblings all living hours away, we had four days between Christmas and New Years to empty the house in prep for sale. Our approach was similar - three triage piles, one for the landfill (8 pickup+trailer loads), one for donation* and one of items one of us wanted, which we later went through together. The only tension came from having to process it all so quickly - Dad had not let us touch anything before we moved him out.
ReplyDelete*We had three pickup loads of furniture, and I pulled into the thrift store parking lot first. Two ladies pulled in beside me a moment later and were eyeballing the items on my truck. The older one (mom of the younger) walked up and asked if we were getting ready to drop off, and then asked if she could buy some items from me directly. Turned out the daughter's boyfriend had moved out suddenly and had taken literally everything. My brothers had shown up by that point, and we offered to drive to her single-wide and loaded in everything we had, completely re-furnishing it for her. Then had them follow us back to Dad's, where we loaded them up with cookware, dishes, etc. We explained it was our faith in Christ that was behind us wanting to help. They both were in tears...
wow. I would think there was some divine intervention there for you to cross paths like that, at the exact time... thanks for sharing.
DeleteJoe Its not so much what you keep, its what you wish you had kept. Woody
ReplyDeleteI cook on a Griswold 10" cast iron pan every morning. Labeling indicates it was manufactured before 1900. Came from my grand mother's estate. She was born in 1886. Passed in 1968. Surely should could have bought it in an estate sale. I prefer to think it came from her mother. Roger
ReplyDeleteThat's "Surely she could..."
DeleteERJ, we are on the edge of finally undertaking this monumental task as well. I am not looking forward to it, but at the same time I am looking forward to the closure that it might provide.
ReplyDeleteThose writings are priceless.
As someone who use to have 2 antique stores. Please don't just pitch willy-nilly. My dad had a yard sale and took a chicken cookie jar that was mine (long story) put it in a sale and was so proud that he made 5 bucks. At the time it sold for $350/400. Rare manufacture. Any items for Aunt Jemima type things are very collectable. At least take a laptop and check stuff against ebay. Otherwise you'll be throwing thousand of dollars away. Those items that you weren't allowed to eat on when a kid, I had some, after breaking and chipping them later on found the plates were now worth over a $100 each.
ReplyDeletePBS antique roadshow had 2 LOL who had bought a side table for $5. Soethby(?) sold it at auction for $850,000.
My Bride now has a business organizing for folks caught in this predicament. Most of her clients are the "kids" who like you have to sort through Mom and Dad's stuff. Sometimes it's Mom or Dad downsizing to move to a smaller place.
ReplyDeleteSometimes a sympathetic outsider is just what the family needs to sort through stuff. We had to do this for my in-laws without any help; no fun.
Boat Guy
Frame that letter
ReplyDeleteI have a friend that took all the “junk” his mom treasured and built a box for it, he buried this in his pet cemetery and placed a marker.
ReplyDeleteThis way he didn’t feel bad for throwing it away and if he ever felt he’d made a terrible mistake he knew where it was.
I thought this was genius.