Family Treasures
“I thought I’d skim through my copy of Wind of the Willows. I couldn’t find it. I did, however, find a used copy online. There was only one little problem. It was $11,000!”
Tax time is just around the corner and while I wait for the last documents to settle my mother’s estate, I decided it was time to make some decisions about my mother’s final treasures stored in the spare bedroom. I spent a few hours yesterday perusing my mother’s stamp collection. I then called a stamp appraiser who said stamp collecting is the deadest of hobbies; if my mother was not a serious collector, then it was doubtful that these stamps have any value.
In packing up her island home, my mother was disappointed to find that items she thought valuable were actually worth very little. My parents had owned some lovely numbered prints, including her three favourites – a cardinal, a chickadee, and a kingfisher. A quick online appraisal revealed that the frames were worth more than the prints. Pieces from her pewter collection, bought at Dutch flea markets over the years, were selling on Facebook Marketplace for $20 or less. Even her beloved Hummel and pewter Christmas decorations were practically worthless.
She had hoped to leave her children and grandchildren something of value. She could not grasp that the family treasures we longed for were those that held sentimental value.
My oldest daughter wanted the wood magnets that lived on my mother’s fridge. My parents moved often, and these magnets were always on the fridge. They remind my daughter of her grandparents when she now opens her fridge. My younger daughter chose three hand-carved bowls once displayed on the hutch. Her opa loved working with wood. He was quite a craftsman. I remember the wooden ceiling he added to our kitchen during my high school year, and the bed he made for me. Even my brothers and I were drawn to wooden treasures, each choosing a carving from Quebec, much loved by both my parents.
I look around our home and find memories almost everywhere I look. Many are from my maternal grandmother – hand-stitched linen handkerchiefs, cross-stitched bookmarks, and a vintage Hummel of a baby girl with a bee on her nose. I had always loved this Hummel, which hung on the wall in my oma’s living room in Leiden, the Netherlands. She gave it to me over 40 years ago and I only found out in recent years that my mother had been disappointed it had skipped a generation.
One of my favourite treasures is a pewter pitcher given to my grandmother for her 18th birthday by the owners of the house where she worked as a maid. My mother gave it to me when she packed up her home. I think of my grandmother as a resilient young girl. Her salary supplemented the family income as my great-grandmother had been widowed at 41-years-old. In later years, my grandmother would collect money from her siblings every month, providing a pension for my great-grandmother. I also remember her stories of the war years. She and my grandfather volunteered for the Dutch resistance and risked their lives hiding Jewish families in the attic, picking up contraband from the countryside in the dead of night, and once, helping a resistance fighter escape from his German captors. My grandmother married when she was 27 years old, already pregnant with my mother. I don’t know the backstory of her relationship with my grandfather; I do know their marriage was at times volatile. We often traveled to the Netherlands for their milestone anniversaries, celebrated with restaurant dinners and parties. But I also remember arguments, shouting, and a sense of disdain for each other. She shared with me on several occasions that if she had lived in a different time, she would never have married. She would have raised her daughter on her own while traveling the world. The pewter pitcher sits in my bedroom window between two succulent oregano plants. Every time I glance out the window, the pitcher reminds me of an 18-year-old girl with big dreams, a young girl who had a tremendous amount of responsibility on her shoulders.
None of us wanted the many items once loved by our mother. I took a number of them, giving her hope that they would stay in the family. I stored them away and now that she is gone, it is time for them to go. This is not an easy process. I may not want these things, yet they evoke so many memories. My mother was a prolific cross-stitcher; her work hung on every wall in her house. I still have a teetering pile of her framed work on the top shelf of the cupboard. Other than displaying a few in our house, I have no idea what to do with them. Some have found their way to the thrift store, but it bothers me that most people will never know how many hours my mother poured into their creation.
Did anyone else read Deborah Crombie’s story in Jungle Red Writers about her copy of The Wind in the Willows? She was feeling nostalgic for Mole and Toad and the rest of the crew, and reached for her copy with the Ernest Shephard illustrations but could not find it. She shares that she has a shelving system that makes sense to her, and she is usually pretty good at putting her hands on a book - but not this time. After more frustrated searching, she thought she would order a copy, the same hardcover with the Shepard illustrations. She did find a used copy online, there was only one little problem. It was $11,000! She was left wondering whether her copy was the same 1931 1st edition, as it certainly looked similar.
This sent her into a panic about some of her other treasured books. She found her set of Shepard-illustrated A.A. Milnes, now for sale online for $275. But she could not find her 1st edition of Helene Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road, now selling online for $575. Her advice - if you have books you think might be valuable, do not let them walk off with the book gremlins!
This brings me back to the stamp collection. Although sentimental value may outweigh monetary value for me, I still hold this small glimmer of hope that maybe, among all of my mother’s stamps, there is one that will provide us with a windfall!
Have you discovered any family treasures sorting through dusty shelves and trunks stored in the attic?