Grandpa’s Mirror: A Continuation of Family Stuff

Where does it all go?

All of that stuff that was in grandma and grandpa’s house

~where is it now?

I referenced an article in my last post, Sorry, nobody wants your parents’ stuff.  There was more discussion surrounding the topic, so I thought I’d spend some more time talking about it.

Another article in the Washington Post entitled Stuff it: Millennials nix their parents’ treasures suggests that Millennials are NOT interested in their parents’ old tea sets or bulky wooden furniture. They don’t even want the macaroni necklace they made in Sunday School. I can understand that. They probably don’t even remember making it.  I like the point made in the article that kids make that stuff for their parents. The parents enjoyed it when the child gave it to them. Now, it’s time to pitch that moldy thing. No one wants it!

Millennials are mobile and want their lives to be less cluttered.  So…the shelves at the flea markets and second-hand stores continue to pile.

For a long time, I collected things because they reminded me of my childhood.  I know that a lot of people do that. We often hear people talking in antique stores about the things that their grandparents, parents or aunts and uncles had. Some, like us, even see things that they had as a child in an antique shop. That’s always a little depressing. : )

I saw this scale at a second-hand store and thought of our coffee table when I was little. My mom had rubber grapes on each side ~ a green cluster on one side and purple on the other. I have no idea what happened to ours. Although it brought back instant, warm, wonderful memories, it was not the scale we had. It was marked a mere $2.50. The old me would have bought it and found a place for it, but the new me looked at it, felt the memory, took a picture and moved on.  I will most likely delete the pictures, too.

There is some stuff that is just too valuable or personal to give away, so it may be important for a family member to keep the memory.

That was the case with my friend Peggy Franz Elkins.  Here grandfather owned the mirror in the featured picture. Here is what she said about it.

My grandfather came to this country from Yugoslavia in his teens and was a tailor in Cleveland, making suits and dresses from his home. This mirror was in the living room of his home off the bedroom where people would change and get fitted. Dave and I have moved 14 times during our years of marriage and   every time we would move, my father would come to visit the mirror and ask about the mirror. Not Hi, how are you, but where is your grandfather’s mirror.  It is huge, cast iron, heavy beveled glass, rotating pier mirrors. Very Victorian with its gargoyle faces and claw foot base. I was offered $5,000 for it by an antique dealer. He was going to cut it into pieces and sell each piece separately. NO WAY, I couldn’t sell Grandpa!

Linda Sprague Pappas said that she uses her grandmother’s Waterford Crystal tumblers for her toothbrush holder. I call that “replacing the mundane.”  

I spoke to Peggy before she headed out to an estate sale. I told her to NOT BUY anything.

She told me:

My motto is that if something comes in, something of equal weight and size must go out. I’m replacing the mundane with cherishables.

I love that idea.    What do you think?