Are you the custodian of a family heirloom?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m the eldest child, eldest daughter, the one who’s been married the longest, and I live the closest to our parents, so when it’s “closet cleaning” time at the Ancestral Homestead, I tend to end up as the custodian of various family heirlooms. Now, I’m not talking about real valuable stuff here, like Ming vases, just mildly collectible, “of interest to family and hobbyists only” stuff.

For example, I am the official holder of a little collection of plain gold wedding bands belonging to various grandmas and great-grandmas. I really have no clue as to what to do with all this stuff. I’m just putting it all somewhere and figuring it’ll be something for my kids to deal with when my time comes.

So last Thanksgiving my mom’s contribution to my collection was The Silverware, a very small collection of silverware (plate, not sterling) dating from the late 19th and early 20th century (not to mention the Wedding Present Silverware from 1954), among which was The Hawley Teaspoon. The Hawley Teaspoon is a “coin silver” teaspoon from the 19th century, meaning someone flattened out some silver coins and made a teaspoon. It’s not particularly valuable, as these things go. It’s got little dents in it. And they engraved the name “Hawley” on it, which is a branch of the family tree so distant that even I, who have a pretty good grasp of who all these people are, have no clue as to what the Hawley connection is.

So she came over yesterday for something else, and after a considerable amount of hemming and hawing, got around to the fact that there were actual representatives of the Hawleys coming into town to visit the Central Illinois gravesite of their kinfolks, and, well, she and Cousin So-And-So thought it would be nice if…if I didn’t mind too much…

I said, “What, they want to visit The Hawley Teaspoon? I’ll check and see if I can arrange a viewing…”

It was not a joking matter. I let her off the hook. “You want to give them The Hawley Teaspoon? Bless your little heart, darlin’, here it is. Take it, and with my blessing. Anything else they’d like? The Smythe-Jones Flintstones Tippee Sipper? The Brought-Over-In-Steerage Barbie Doll?”

I mean, my own mother was afraid to ask me to give up The Hawley Teaspoon. She’s only known me for forty-something years, and she thought I’d care? Sheesh.

Anybody else out there with family heirloom “stuff” around the house that they just “have”?

2

Well, I have my Grandfathers WWII decorations. They are (if memory serves, been a while since I looked at them) an Iron Cross 2nd class, Armoured Assault Badge and a “War Merit Badge” with swords. I may be incorrect with the name on the last one, I cannot remember.

I also have a wall clock that my other Grandparents recieved as a wedding gift, in addition to several old books.

I also have from them several Rockwell plates and other collector plates, but I don’t think that they are too old.

3

Ah yes, the amateur genealogists get all the fun stuff.

I have:

-a daugerrotype of my great-great-great-grandparents - with their infant daughter (my great-great-grandmother) in their arms. These weren’t any speical people, just a Connecticut farmer’s family, but he musta been well-to-do to afford that and the land he bought (one deed in my possession was for the sum of a thousand bucks - and this was 1863!)

-letters written from the fields of battle by this same ancestor’s brother during the Civil War

-my Swedish immigrant great-grandfather’s pocket watch

-the same ancestor’s family Bible (in Swedish), as well as several other family Bibles from different branches

Mamma O has:

-a handmade clock dating from 1803; it’s a very peculiar clock in that it has only the hour hand. We thought the minute hand had broken off at some point but we’ve begun to understand that it probably never had one in the first place. It came from Sweden, unfortunately we don’t know who it first belonged to.

We both want:

-out Swedish immigrant ancestor’s violin. It’s off with another cousin (last we knew she was up in Maine) but since we pride ourselves on being the musical branch of the family this is the one we’d start a feud over. :smiley:

4

Middle child (youngest daughter, but who cared once the all important son was born, eh?) But I digress.

I have: A notebook of pictures of my father’s work (he’s a custom jeweler).

      My dad's only sibling's death certificate.
      My dad's baptism certificate (written in German, he was batized in Racine Wisconsin).
       My grandparent's death certificates.
      My eldest (deceased) sister's charm from mom's (also deceased) charm bracelet.

Of course, we have a really, very tiny family (all that’s left is dad, me, my two siblings each of whom are married, and we have 5 kids total among the 3 of us. No aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents etc.)

5

Well, I’m the youngest and their only son, but I get the Wedgewood and the silver service.

I already received a time-piece from my grandfather that is about 120 years old.

I think I get a 300 year-old painting of the New World, too.

6

I have some momentos, like my great great granfather’s passport from Austria-Hungary, his old army medals, and some 2’ wedding photos of my great grandparents, but they aren’t heirlooms, just curiosities. Nobody really wants them, even me.

7

I LOVE this kinda stuff. Wanna give it away? Let me know.

8

My grandparents have been dropping like flies over the last couple of years and I have acquired a lot of stuff. I now have 3 complete sets of dishes, one for every day (6 place settings), one nice china in a blue and white pattern (12 place settings), and one ridiculously baroque set that I absolutely love, but don’t think I could ever actually use, because it is hand painted (you can see the brush strokes) 150 year old bone china. I think that one is 16 place settings, including serving dishes and each place setting has salt cellars, butter chips, and bone dishes along with all the other stuff.

I also have this set of square desert bowls that match a cake plate and candy dishes. I like those fine and actually use them a couple of times a year. Of course the fact that I have them means I also get to be the keeper of the still life paintings that my great great grandmother’s little sister painted of those dishes way back when.

The coolest thing that I have, but will probably never use, is a sewing machine that belonged to my great grandmother. The case is sitting (dismantled) on the living room floor because I can’t decide if that’s really where I want it to live, and once I reassemble the whole thing it will weigh close to 300 pounds and I don’t ever want to move it again.

9

Holy Flea Market, Batman!

What don’t have in my apartment that isn’t at least 75+ years old and didn’t belong to some long-dead relative?

I like the stuff, but it drives my BF crazy. He says it’s dark and depressing, and that I have the taste of an 87-year-old great aunt. I myself enjoy the psychic weight of all of those generations pressing down on me. Kind of like a warm, heavy blanket on a cold night.

However, I’ve already been told that the furniture and accompanying accessories must go down the road (or, in the BF’s words “Back to Hell, where they came from!”) after we’re married.

Hee! I may be having an auction! (Of the furniture, not the BF!)

10

Let me tell you the tale of the Family Heirloom!

The Robertson family heirloom is a glass bowl, orangeish in colour, but with a mother-of-pearl sheen to it. Moulded into the bowl are stags heads and holly. The bowl has feet, it’s quite cute as far as these things go.

The story is that the Robertson bowl came over on the ship with the original emigrants to Australia, that it was a family heirloom even in those days back in Scotland. The Robertson bowl was traditionally passed from eldest daughter to eldest daughter, so it came to my mother, and is destined to be mine some day. Working on the notion that the bowl came from Scotland, I estimated that it must have been at least 150 years old, maybe more, and was impressed. We put the Robertson bowl on a shelf, and left it there.

A few years ago, it occured to me that, if the Robertson bowl was traditionally handed down from eldest daughter to eldest daughter, then
a) It wasn’t really the Robertson bowl, was it? Robertson was my grandmother’s maiden name, in theory a generation back it belonged to a family with a different surname.
b) if indeed it did come through the female line, then it must have been the Lowery bowl, which would make it English, not Scottish and
c) It had actually been given to my grandmother by her Robertson father. Not even a daughter, let alone the eldest daughter, he was the youngest child in a family of 8, he was a son, and he had 4 older sisters who should have inherited the bowl before him. In fact, the oldest child in the family was a daughter, and she had two daughters, so if the Robertson bowl was handed from eldest daugher to eldest daughter, then we should never have inherited it.
This got me thinking about the bowl, and wondering where it really came from, so I took it to an antique store to have it valued, and find out its history.

  1. Not Scottish. Australian made.
  2. Not over 150 years old. Made sometime before 1925, but not before 1890.
  3. Worth maybe $150 Australian.
    So, rather than bringing it over with them on the boat, they bought it here. It was a Christmas edition, released yearly until 1925. If it was in any other colour, it would be worth more, but the orange is only worth around $150. It’s still a pretty bowl that belonged to my great grandparents, and it is still our family heirloom, but it taught me to take all family legends with a grain of salt!

On the flip side, my great aunt Nancy, upon inheriting my great grandparents possessions, threw away the family bible, which recorded our pedigree for generations, and contained locks of hair for every member of the family born before 1930. Argh!!

11

Back when I sprained my ankle badly I got my great-grandfather’s cane(maternal grandmother’s father). For the last couple of years of his life he was blind, and lived with his daughter’s family. My mother remembers, as a young girl, leading him down the path behind the house, to go to the outhouse. “Tap, tap, tap.”

My grandmother is giving away small items from her belongings. One of my most treasued possesions is an orange candy dish she received as a teaching gift in 1925. I remember it on the inside back porch of her house. When the family was all gathered for dinners and such we kids would try and sneak back there to get a mint or lemon drop, being careful not to rattle the lid and give ourselves away. Of course in later years we learned the grownups knew what was going on!

12

I have about 13 or so pieces of Mary Gregory® glassware, given to me when my Grandmoter died. I do not want this stuff in my home. We have nowhere to put it where it would be safe, and with a cat in the house we’re just begging for little shards of Mary Gregory® glasswaare all over the floor.

It’s for sale, if anyone wants it. $10,000 for the whole collection. I’ll pay the postage and the postage insurance.

13

I’m roughly in the middle of a pack of 21 cousins, but I was the one who caught the geneology bug while still in college and have ended up with most of the family photographs. I have been scanning them into a database and will burn a big stack of CDs for the family reunion. Also on the CD will be Acrobat PDF files of many family documents, including:

[ul]
[li] A narrative written by my paternal grandfather, of a trip he took with grandmother from their home in Oregon up to Anchorage in 1957 that is full of character insights. “Stayed in cabins that night. $5–too damn much.”[/li]
[li] A newspaper article written in 1961 that includes extensive quotes from the above grandfather’-father-in-law concerning the James Brothers bank robbery at Northfield, Minnesota in the 1890’s which he witnessed as a small boy.[/li]
[li] Another newspaper article from the 50’s entitled “They Shot the Horse Thief” detailing a series of events involving horse thievery, a posse and a gun battle in Washington State’s Yakima Valley in 1908 involving my grandfather and a couple of great uncles.[/li]
[li] The transcript of a highly patriotic scripted radio “interview” involving my grandmother in 1942. She was being interviewed because she’d gone to work in a packing plant while my dad and one of his brothers were off in the service.[/li]
[/ul]

They are far more valuable to me than mere things because they give insight and background into the character of the people involved.

…though I do have the rolltop desk that belonged to my grandfather. It’s pretty nifty as well.

14

Cazzle, the minute you said “orange color with a mother of pearl sheen”, I said out loud, “Carnival glass. She’s got a carnival glass punchbowl.” Sometimes people call it “caramel glass”, incorrectly. It’s considered collectible, depending on who you talk to.

Is it this color?
http://www.glass.co.nz/carnival.htm

About carnival glass.
http://www.encyclopedia.netnz.com/carnivalglass.html

Australian carnival glass.
http://www1.loom.net.au/home/rborrow/acg/

15

I just love hearing what people end up with because of other people collecting it!

We have an antique sewing machine that belonged to my husband’s grandmother. It comes in a beautiful wooden cabinent, and flips up, if I knew how to sew, it would be great! I got her old fashioned egg beater, you know you wind the sideways knob, and the two beaters turn?? I always think of her, when I use it.

We also have antique cameras that belonged to my husband’s grandfather, plus election pins, old, and yellowed, but by george, he liked 'em, so we keep 'em!!

Love is never giving stuff away!

16

Nothing yet since all my relatives are still alive. I only know of two things I’ll get when the 'rents kick the bucket.

The first is a crystal bowl that has been in my dad’s family for generations. It has special meaning to my father because it was the only thing rescued from a fire at his grandmother’s house. The second item is the lone family photograph of my immediate family. My sister thinks she’s getting it, but my parents put it in their will for me to get it. They seem to think I’ll take better care of these two items than my sister. They’re probably right.

17

Oh my mother has something like this. Hers is on a cast iron base with a pedal and wheel, and has a wood top. The sewing machine is underneath and you flip it up to sew.

18

Hmmm, I’m not sure what I am in possession of. I have a framed picture of some sort. A likeness of my gr-gr grandfather, on a metal sheet, and it smears like charcoal. My aunt found that out by mistake when she tried to “dust” it. And I have his hand-made straight back chair, which he supposedly slept in. Kinda cute, with its mis-matched pieces. He was born in 1840, and died 1880. Lung trouble of some sort.

19

I have a gold pocketwatch that belonged to my great-grandfather. It’s over a hundred years old.

20

THAT does sound exactly the same! It weighs a ton, doesn’t it? All I get to do with it, is dust it. :wink: