People of the Stuff

My cousin Barbara and her husband have spent the last several months downsizing and preparing to move into senior living. Which has meant going through an awful lot of stuff: the accumulation of nearly sixty years of marriage, plus some of the accumulated stuff of her mother (my Aunt Margaret), our grandmother (Nanny), and our great-grandmother (Bridget Trainor). Then there's the extra-added attraction of the accumulated stuff of her mother-in-law (Eva).

Twenty years ago, when Barbara and Dick moved out of the the single-family home where they'd raised their kids and went into a townhouse community, we were all delighted that the storage space in their new digs was so capacious. I swear that the storage room off of the finished part of the townhouse basement is at least half the size of my full condo. So lots of room to hang on to all sorts of stuff.

And then, all of a sudden, the day of reckoning was nigh.

Their new place is lovely. But it's a lot smaller than what they're used to, and there's a lot less space for stuff.

So, along with their sons, daughters-in-law, eldest granddaughter, and another cousin, I've been helping them go through things to figure out what to take, what to give to someone in the family, what to donate, and what to trash. If it takes a village to raise a child, let me tell you it takes an equally sized village to help empty out a house - even if it's a townhouse.

When I say I have been helping "them," I really mean my cousin Barbara. Dick's aesthetic has always inclined more towards Zen monatery. He's been packing up and schlepping off to the Salvation Army with a vim and vigor that belies his age (87). But Barbara wants to go through her things - most of which, by the way, are lovely, interesting, and/or have sentimental meaning. Reverse curation, I guess. 

As I have explained to Dick (i.e., yelled at him) each time he's about to grab some teacups, vases, whatnots that Barbara hasn't yet gone through, so he can make yet another run to the Sally: Back off! This is in Barbara's DNA! She comes from a long line of People of the Stuff!

Nanny, our grandmother, was the OG stuff person in our family. 

Every available bit of space - tabletop, desktop, bookcase, dresser - was crammed with stuff: curios, knicknacks, whatnots. I have plenty of it, including Nanny's cookie jar, which takes center stage on my living room mantel. (Among the stuff flanking it, you can see one of my father's anchor bookends, a souvenir from his Navy days during WWII. And next to that, you can see a bit of a very pretty green and blue glass vase that Barbara gave me for my birthday a few years back - when we were still both in accumulation mode.)

Even before Barbara started adding to my Nanny mix, I already had acquired the steerhorns that hung over the bar in Rogers' Brothers Saloon; a mirror; two lamps; a clawfoot table; a rickety desk and chair; what had been my father's childhood dresser; and an ugly-ass grey and blue pitcher that had broken and been crudely patched together by Nanny. But now that Barbara is deaccessioning, I've acquired even more of Nanny's stuff. 

Like this hot chocolate set. From the vintage - early twentieth century - I'm guessing it was a wedding present. I'm sure Nanny got a ton of use out of it, given that within four years of her wedding day, she had three kiddos. Anyway, it's now in my downstairs' bathroom. (I'm not planning on hosting any more hot chocoloate parties than Nanny did.)

I took a few of the serving pieces from Nanny's very pretty China set - 1930-ish handpainted Noritake - but then my niece Molly decided she wanted Nanny's china. I may use that one covered bowl on Thanksgiving, but the full set - where full means that half the coffee cups are missing - is packed and ready for Molly. 

I took the two two-toned little brown vingegar jugs that had been Bridget Trainor's, and gave one each to my nieces Molly and Caroline. 

God help me, I'm eyeing that little ice chest of Nanny's - or maybe it was Bridget Trainors's - and the one side chair on wheels - items I most decidedly don't need and decidedly have no room for. But, hey, I'm a bona fide person of the stuff.

So was my Aunt Margaret. I already had one of her dining room chairs, a few paperweights (which she collected), a very nice tray and two sweet little dishes - one with lillies of the valley, the other with violets - that sit on what had been my father's dresser holding, well, small stuff. But I haven't left Barbara's empty handed of Peg's stuff: I've taken a few trinkets. 

My mother was also a colossal person of the stuff, and I've lost all track of how much of her stuff I have around here: vases, decorative plates, her mixing bowl, the aluminum pan she used for brownies and barmbrack, a side chair, and two lovely water colors her artist friend Ann Curtain gave her as a wedding gift. Her silver. The nice date book from some museum in which she kept track of birthdays. The entry for her birthday, November 8th, just says Me. (Tell me you could part with that.) Some  of her OG Christmas ornaments. (And a couple that were Nanny's. Because why not.)

Anyway, I've got People of the Stuff from both sides. My sisters are both the same way. 

My sister Kath is in the process of preparing to move out of their big place in Brookline, and find a place that's more manageable (i.e., isn't on four floors with steep staircases). Her place is packed with fabulosity - both her own and some family gems. (I am about the inherit the sweet little wood-framed Madonna and Child that was on the wall in our childhood bedroom.) Kath has not, of course, wanted to take anything from Barbara's downsizing, much as she might actually want it. But I did find the one thing I just knew she would cherish: a gold catechism medal that Nanny was awarded in 1894, when she was twelve years old. Kath is thrilled to have it. 

My sister Trish is also the beneficiary of some of Barbara's downsizing: table, chairs, some Roseville pottery.

Fortunately, although their new place will be far smaller than what they're used to, Barbara will be able to take enough of her stuff with her to make the new place feel like home. 

The process of going through all of Barbara's stuff with her has been bittersweet. Every item - and there are plenty of them - has a memory, some meaning, associated with it. We probably took longer to sort through her stuff than we technically needed to take, but there have been so many good stories. That Noritake china set that Molly's taking? (That creamer, btw, shows the pattern. This is the pic I texted to Molly to see if she wanted the set.) Apparently, when Aunt Margaret became engaged, Nanny wanted to invite Uncle Ralph's family over to dinner and didn't feel she had decent enough china. So off she went - I suspect to Coghlin's in downtown Worcester - to buy the Noritake. I don't know who Nanny was so all-fired in need of impressing. It's not like Uncle Ralph's family were some sort of grandees. His mother had died when he and his brothers were still pretty young, and his father was a Worcester cop. 

Anyway Nanny was a notoriously dreadful cook. Perhaps she felt that having nice, new china would detract from the awfulness of the meal. 

I am happy that I was able to go through all of Barbara's stuff with her. It was a way of remembering, a way of honoring her possessions, a way of recognizing our kinship as People of the Stuff. And of the joy we take in both acquiring new stuff, and hanging on to the stuff of our family members. (I could write another chapter on going through Barbara's wonderful - mostly very arty - costume jewelry, and collection of gorgeous scarves. But that's a story for another day.)

A few years from now, I'll be doing the same thing here. Going through my stuff, reminiscing about where I got it, about whose it once was. I'll be hauling stuff to Goodwill, I'll be tossing stuff in the trash, but there's lot of stuff I'll want to find a good home for. 

There are plenty of People of the Stuff out there that might be delighted to have that hot chocolate set.