Priceless Memories

Our family loves its heirlooms. Both sides of my family had a lot of neat antiques that would have been fun to own. The problem I faced was that I had cousins who became interested in antiques just before my interest was piqued. That left me with not much to pine after.

Something that I found to be a lot of fun to investigate was trunks full of jewelry and other treasures in a little attic just off of my uncle’s bedroom in my Grandma’s house in Black Earth.  There were always really cool items in various nooks and crannies to explore.   Both of my Grandmas had attics but none of us kids were allowed to go in them. I was told there were a lot of treasures, but I never got to see them for myself.

I was given one of the most fun heirlooms, and consequently, my favorite item, which I received from my dad’s mom, Grandma Grace, as we called her. She had a lot of neat old things. After Grandma passed my family, excluding myself, went to Grandma’s house to go through her items and take what we wanted as things were going to be sold to an antique dealer. I didn’t go as I had had to stay home and clean.  Did I say clean?  Call me a tadd ocd.  Well, the saying, “You snooze you lose” applies here.  I told my husband to pick out some wonderful things for me to remember my grandma.  First of all, he called and said he was bringing home her dining room table and six chairs together with a very long buffet that matched the set.  Now, we lived in a rather small 1400 square foot house with no formal dining room.  So, this was eventually stored in our crawl space as there was no way this fit in the dining area of our tri-level.  We wanted to be able to someday have a nice large dining room to place this furniture in.   So, in storage, it went.

Now, Art was excited about an item that he thought was very rare and was probably worth a lot of money.  When he brought it home I couldn’t believe my eyes.  The valuable antique that he brought home as a remembrance of Grandma was a white tea set, which consisted of a teapot, creamer, and sugar bowl.  This was truly a treasure to me as it had a very special meaning.  I knew it would not be worth anything both materially or mentally to anyone but me as the last time shortly before my grandma passed we had gone shopping together in Beaver Dam.  We had gone to the Sentry Food Store and this is where she purchased this valuable tea set stating that she thought this purchase would be great to use for her card club.  So, it is not always the value or age that makes an antique or heirloom, but the memory behind it.  

Among all the wonderful heirlooms that I am lucky to have, this is my favorite.

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