Attic Treasures

We live in a big old farmhouse – a home that my dear husband’s family moved into many years ago.  Before we met, my husband renovated the house, enlarging rooms and switching things up quite a bit.  The area that had formerly been a summer kitchen and cistern was converted into a garage and the second story above that was left unfinished.  That has become a very useful storage area and houses everything from our shop’s bookkeeping archives to odd chairs and stray pieces of furniture.  Occasionally, I pop into that area looking for something specific and get lost in the paraphernalia of bygone years. 

I never got to meet my parents-in-law as they both passed on long before I met my husband.  Because the living part of our house has been totally renovated since they have been gone, there are really no clues to their personalities in that part of our home.  But the storage area is filled with all kinds of memorabilia!  There are old fashioned copper kettles that my mother-in-law used for canning, an old scrub board that she used to do the wash.  There are funny old toiletry items that belonged to my father-in-law, like the straight razor that he used to shave everyday since apparently he never trusted the “new-fangled” razors to give him a close shave. 

Since we got married, I’ve been on a hunt to find something more personal – like maybe a letter my mother-in-law might have written and hidden somewhere with a big bold heading on the envelope: “TO MY FUTURE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW” – a letter in which she will tell me how sad she is that she never met me, but assure me that she is delighted that her only son has finally found such a wonderful partner.  Thus far I have found nothing quite so romantic, but a girl can dream!

There is an old trunk of my mother-in-law's that I like to open once and while.  Today I went up and rummaged around in that trunk hoping to find a remnant of material that might work for a chair I’m making over.  I’ve found some different pieces, one of which I think might work:

And some funny old sewing notions, like this strange “cover your own buckle” kit:

And this great pattern for smocked curtains, a pattern that apparently only cost 35 cents!

There is this lovely jumble of old embroidery floss, yarn and crochet work housed in what looks to be a shaving kit:

And then I found this great gem – an old newspaper from 1962 lining the bottom of the trunk!  What a wealth of humourous information this has proven to be.  Almost, but not quite, as great as finding a letter directed to my dear self from my deceased but none-the-less appreciative mother-in-law.  

Some of the highlights were in the advertisements, like this one advertising a dry cleaner.  Only 88 cents to dry clean a dress or 39 cents for a pair of trousers!

Apparently apples were only $1 a bushel ....

And you could buy a "bouffant crinoline" at Simpson Sears for a mere $2.44.

And who knew that Ann Landers was so good-looking when she was young?!

Some of the articles were absolutely hilarious.  The section of the  newspaper is called "Women's Pages" and includes this article:

Sorry it's so fuzzy but basically it explains that the school board had almost made the "mistake" of ordering teachers' desks without ashtrays!  Fortunately, one of the trustees caught the mistake before the order was placed.  Can't imagine teachers ever being allowed to smoke in a classroom, can you?   They can't even smoke anywhere near school property now!

This article really made me chuckle:

"The age of chivalry is not dead in Hamilton courts.  During a divorce action in the Supreme Court of Ontario, a woman broke down on the stand.  While answering questions, she desperately searched for a handkerchief in her handbag.  Not finding one, she wiped away tears with her hand.  Her counsel, Donald Cooper, strode to the witness box proffering an immaculately folded white handkerchief.  Proceedings continued, with the woman dabbing at her eyes with her gratefully-accepted gift.  Her divorce was granted."

Isn't that too funny?  I just can't believe that made it into the newspaper!

But back to the subject of my mother-in-law, I haven't found any secret letters from her yet.  In fact, there are  very little of what you could call "personal items" anywhere to be found ... a few post cards from friends (but mostly written in Hungarian), an old well-worn Bible, and her wire-rimmed eyeglasses are pretty much all there is.  But going through her belongings does give me some clues about her personality.  She was obviously a woman who loved her family and did everything she could to make ends meet.  She saved little scraps of material to patch clothing or to make rag rugs (some of which we still have).  She tried very hard to make "special" dresses for my husband's sisters, saving little bits of fancy trim to be reused and recycled.  And she didn't spend a lot of money on things for herself, so perhaps that's why her personal items are so limited.

Here's a picture of my in-laws on their wedding day.  Don't they look lovely?

So I guess I'll keep hunting just in case there is a special letter that my mother-in-law has left for me somewhere mixed in with all those "attic treasures," but part of me realizes that the real message is an unwritten and unspoken one from a woman who lived simply and loved her family.

An Archeological Dig in my Garden

Yesterday when I was planting our garden, I came across a selection of broken china shards that have surfaced since we last cultivated.

It reminded me so much of when I was a child and would spend hours playing outside in the summer. One of my favourite "games" was to play with all the pieces of broken pottery and china that would turn up every time some part of the farm was tilled. This was especially true of the garden closest to our house.

I loved to play with each piece of china and imagine what it had been in its previous life - a tea cup?  a dinner plate? I would spend hours making designs with the broken pieces - temporary mosaics that changed at a whim. And then I would try to imagine the very first person who owned the china and wonder what they were like and what they served to eat on the china. I think this is probably where I started to fall in love with fine china. And now, years later, I have many lovely (and unbroken!) tea cups, plates, etc. to play with.

And yet, still, when I came across these pieces yesterday,

they caught my fancy in a way that the cherished fine pieces that fill my china cabinets don't quite do. These two pieces look like they might have come from a plate. They are fairly heavy china and remind me a bit of the kind of plates that were used in old diners. Perhaps they belonged to my mother-in-law. I wish she was still here so I could ask her, because my husband is not likely to remember. He will remember a delicious meal in complete detail but never notice the plate it is served on!

It's probably partially caused by nostalgia for my childhood, but I still think there is something special about found china pieces. I think the mystery of the broken pieces is what attracts me ... I know that they were once something of beauty, treasured by a household and if they could speak, they would tell me the story of where they have been and whose lives they have touched. Which inevitably leads me to wonder who will find my pieces of china one day down the road? Will they turn up in some garden hundreds of years from now, shiny surfaces and colourful prints hidden beneath clumps of dirt?

I hope someday that my china will give another little girl great joy. That she will find the pieces and play with them, solitary games that fill her with a sense of beauty and of history, and teach her to love vibrant colours and delicate prints they way I do.  It almost (almost, but not quite) makes me want to leave a codicil in my will, that all my china be broken into pieces and discarded rather than leaving it intact to sit unused and bored on a cabinet shelf, when it could be scattered like seed in a garden, waiting to be found.