My grandfather died a few years before I got married and when I proposed my grandmother allowed me to have his wedding ring. He wore it for the 53 years of their marriage and now I’ve had it for almost 20. When we were sorting through my mom’s things after she passed away I found my dad’s old wallet and I’ve been using it ever since.
In 2002, when she was 73 years old, my mom bought herself a new Mustang convertible. We’re saving it for our youngest daughter who’s 14 now.
When my Grandpa (who had been a painter) died, I got his easel that he had built himself. Probably one of the more sentimental inherited items I have, and I use it regularly.
When my Grandma died nearly 20 years ago, there was a nearly new bottle of Chanel No. 5, her favorite perfume, among her things. The scent reminded my mom of her, so she took it. She’s still got that perfume, and still wears it on special occasions. You’d think the years would have spoiled it, but it still looks and smells exactly the same.
The last time her power went out my mother put oil and a new wick into her father’s railroad lantern. The thing must be at least 80 years old by now.
My sister currently has the cast iron washpot that my mother, grandfather, great-grandparents, etc., all used to make stew. It’s been in the family since at latest the Reconstruction era.
I have dishes (none particularly fancy) that belonged to assorted grandparents and in-laws and the best butcher knife I have is I believe a bewitched item from my grandfather that’s old, wooden handled and almost black but never needs sharpening and I think would cut through a slab of marble.
I just went trap shooting with my great-grandfather’s Fox-Sterlingworth shotgun. That got quite a few comments at the range.
It still shoots like a dream.
My wife sometimes wears one of my grandfather’s old watches, which I had cleaned a couple of years back. A prewar Benrus wasn’t a very big watch, so a woman can wear it with no problem.
My husband uses my dad’s old lunchbox. It’s one of those hard-sided one-person-sized coolers. Mom had kept it around for years after Dad’s death, partially at least because a small cooler is a handy thing. She ended up giving it to us to transport something perishable home after we visited her, and he started using it for his work lunchbox.
Me and the cats share the house I grew up in. It’s filled with all the mundaine and ordinary things like dishes, furnature and appliances I use every day.
I have some treasures like tools of my Grandfathers that I use sparingly. Power tools are faster and easier. But I could do it the old fashioned way if I want to.
Heh, almost all of my kitchen utensils were my grandfather’s. He died in 1994. I have a ton of Tupperware, and some dishware from my mom’s best friend’s mom who died 2 years ago. I also have a few nice blazers that were hers.
I have my grand-father’s scarf. Back during my cold-climate days I used to wear it.
My grand-father was originally an accountant for a british company but he quit his job to become part of the indian independence movement-after which he was so moved by his new-found socialist principals he never went back to his job. Anyway, he took up as a clockmaker and social activist-so we still have some of the clocks. They don’t work anymore and my father refuses to have them fixed but they’re very beautiful-hand carved and made.
Actually, sometimes I ask my father why they sold off all the clocks when they sold the shop after he died and my father sadly remarked that he didn’t learn to appreciate that type of stuff until our family moved to the US.
Just before my friend, a Saint Paul police officer, was killed in the line of duty, he bought a nice pair of Timberland boots. That was almost 12 years ago. They are finally beginning to wear out.
My sister owns the few acres that the remains of my father’s family “homeplace”, a double cabin (or “dogtrot” if you know the term) built just after the civil war, is on. The place was never grand by any means and it’s been abandoned for 20 years and it’s basically an unapproachable dilapidated heap of logs and stones with some tin roof remaining. (The windows, porch columns [not at all fancy- just beams] and even the chimneys[?!] were stolen long ago.)
She is currently building a small house on some lake property she owns and is having the logs (huge and still sturdy) and rock steps dismantled and plans to use them in the new house as a way of incorporating the old into the new. She even plans to use the tin rusty century old in some capacity (roof for a porch or something). I think this is a great idea.
Good on your sister, Sampiro! I wish more people would reuse materials like that.
I have all of my dad’s hand tools and power tools – three fully loaded toolboxes, a leather toolbelt, a power drill, a circular saw, a sander, and a gas-powered chainsaw. I’m still wearing the Levi denim jacket and the lightweight NC State jacket he bought when he was in college. He kept a little key ring in his truck that held two St. Christopher medals, a small crucifix, and a spent bullet (all belonging to his father); that key ring is now in my Jeep. I’ve also got the baseball glove he used in high school. Mom and I each have part of his CD and DVD collections. Mom also has Dad’s old flannel robe. He also had a 256 MB memory stick containing a backup of his digital photos; those, along with his MP3 collection, are now stored on two computers. And I’ve certainly gotten a lot of use out of the memory stick.
I have numerous hand tools that belonged to both grandfathers. In addition, I’ve got the coat my paternal grandfather wore in Korea and his WWII-era trench digger. My maternal grandfather’s 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 is still in the family too (technically my mom owns it, but she doesn’t like driving it – that’s my job!).
I don’t have anything belonging to my paternal grandmother, but my father had a desk that was given to her when she was seven years old (it’s in storage right now). I have a piece of my maternal grandmother’s china (I think the rest is being stored by one of my mom’s cousins).
And there’s plenty of antique furniture too – one cedar chest from my maternal grandfather, another cedar chest from one of Dad’s great aunts, and an end table from my maternal grandmother. My mother has a pie safe and a washstand (both from her grandparents), a sewing machine from her great aunt, a marble-topped chest with matching mirror, a record player, and two wagons.
While I don’t use it I have leant it out to she-friends who want a cool accessory (always with penalty of death if it returns to me with so much as a scratch on it): a chain mesh Art Deco purse similar to these that belonged to my puritanical grandmother’s sister Meridian (1905-1990), a Ruth Gordon clone potty-mouthed hard-drinking (even as an old woman) chain-smoking flapper who I only met about three times but absolutely worshiped. She was the family’s bad-example for three generations, and one of my favorite photos shows her in full flapper regalia.
I have a number of things, but two stand out.
One is a stainless steel ashtray from the wardroom of the USS Joseph P. Kennedy. My Dad was on the precommissioning detail. (I won’t go into any details of how he acquired it)
The second is a small drop leaf table, built by Dad for my Mother, in 1946. It’s made of real wormy chestnut.
I’ll probably give the table to my niece (the school mar’m), but I’m going to wait a few years until her rug rats get a bit older.
I don’t know what to do w/ the ashtray, since everyone has quit smoking, except old dinosaurs like me.
My mother forced some of Dad’s old things on be because they were new and expensive (for her), mostly recent presents he’d gotten, like sweaters and belts and books.
Like all things from Mom, I wore them once to please her, then gave them to Goodwill.
Not that they creeped me out exactly, but Dad had not changed his style since before I was born.
I have my mom’s jewellry and nightgowns.
One thing I’ve always regretted was, when my father died, and, due to a number of years of off again, on again relationship with him, I chose to let his girlfriend clean out his apartment instead of myself. I wish I had of, only because now I would have something of his, as a result, I have nothing.
I was young and it was the first time dealing with something like that. Made the wrong choices. Not easily forgotten.
When I golf, I use my Paternal Grandfather’s old wooden Ping drivers.
My wife wears her grandmothers wedding ring as hers (it was passed, while all were alive, from her Memere, to her mother, and then to Mrs. Butler).
We have lots of quilts made by Memere, and a few of the things from her apartment. I’m sure there is more of them, but I’m not up to date on what came from where.