Since you "can't take it with you," everyone eventually has to decide what to do with memorabilia. Photos and letters from grandparents, aunts and uncles will logically go to the next generation of my cousins and nieces and nephews. But what to do with a baby photo of my late mother? My grandparents had the photo enlarged to almost-lifesize, then placed it in a large (and heavy) wooden frame of "tiger-stripe" pattern apparently popular after the turn of the century; the glass is top-of-the-line convex "bubble glass."
The framed photo hung on the wall in my grandparents' farmhouse for probably 40 years, then was stored in my parents' home for another 50 years, then to me for 10 years. Now it's at the end of the road. Others in my family are happy to get old photos of my mother as an adult, and especially of her as a senior citizen, but a picture of her as a baby triggers no memories and has no sentimental value, and most modern mobile young families don't want to be burdened with a heavy wood-and-glass photo frame.
So this past week I loaded mom in my car, along with a couple Coca-Cola mirrors I bought at a Bill Wade auction in Dallas in the 1970s, and my sister's sleepy-eyed "walking" bridal doll, and my paternal grandfather's medical encyclopedias from his corner drug store, plus boxes of my old collectibles and knick-knacks, and hauled them to a local auctioneer.
My whole adult life I've enjoyed barn auctions, sitting in the bleachers on a Sunday afternoon, or walking through a crowd in a farmyard rummaging through stuff on carts and wagons. There are amazing bargains to be found, and when you don't win you help the seller by boosting the price that winds up being paid by whoever outbid you.
When she was in her late 90s, my mother moved from Minnesota to our town here in Wisconsin, and she enjoyed going to barn auctions, where she would walk around looking at farm implements and old kitchen tools and pottery and dishware and say "I remember these" over and over again. I think she would be delighted to have her old picture frame going to a new family to start a new life.
What a refreshing attitude :) you might find that the antique setting is worth more than you’d imagined, too.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I hate to be ‘that’ guy (in fact I could wel be wrong anyway), but would it not be “whomever outbid you”?
We'll see. Currently at $12.50 (5 bids) with 6 days left to go [this barn auction retains the warehouse setting, but the bidding is online].
DeleteI'm sticking with "whoever" as the subject of that 3-word phrase. The readership of this blog is replete with English teachers and copyeditors who will gleefully final arbitration.
Whoever is correct. But good eye for spreading the grammar gospel.
DeleteShe was hammered down for $15 (6 bids). Just $10 for the 28" walking bridal doll. Three Coke mirrors went for $75. Star item for the evening was my mom's old Singer sewing machine: $307.
DeleteDid you at least archive it as a jpeg?
ReplyDeleteNo. I didn't see any reason to. I have lots of photos of her as an adult.
Delete(of course, now it's archived here on the blog...)
I love the baby portrait of my mother. It is always a pleasure to see how similar she looked at 95.
ReplyDeleteI'm fairly sure my brother inherited a similar (and similarly framed) photo of our Nana with Dad as a baby on her shoulders. He was born in 1928 in Perth in Western Australia.
ReplyDeletethe doll in the box is a doll of the baby in the photo.
ReplyDeleteI-)
i am faced with the same decision... what to do with treasured family items that will not find another home once i've departed this realm. some items are well made 100+ year old furniture that might find a home via some sort of auction (apparently facebook is good for this). but other items such as old photos as you describe and oil paintings done by my parents at art school in the 40's... not so easy to decide.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that has made the process easier for me is digital reproduction of items - and that doesn't apply just to photos and text documents, but also to solid items. Rather than keep the wooden book rack I built for my father in my shop class in 8th grade, I can just take digital photos from a couple angles and toss or donate the original. Then ten years from now I can look at the photos and think "remember this old thing?" without having to pick up the old thing itself. Once you get the process going, it's amazing how many "things" are expendable; the memory may be priceless, but the item itself isn't.
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