I got one in about 1980 - I was ten-ish. It’s not a traditional cedar chest (it’s a very cool antique steamer trunk, instead,) and was filled with keepsake stuff instead of setting-up-housekeeping stuff. I still have it, and it’s still filled with stuff like my high school diploma, Daddy’s Army dress uniform, Granddaddy’s pocket watch, some Depression glass I received from my great-grandmother, baby dresses and afghans that my grandmothers made for me, and so forth.
My sister inherited my mother’s cedar hope chest, but hers was filled with stuff like mine, not china and linens.
Being from New Jersey, we all got a massively scaled-down shoebox-sized chest from the local furniture store that gave them out to all graduates. Mine is around here somewhere, probably with blunt pencils, 3inch floppy disks, business cards from strangers and some string inside.
I bought my own Rimu (nice wood native to NZ) chest not long after my teens. We all knew I wasn’t going to do the traditional sitting around waiting for my prince thing.
I did purchase linen and it may have spent some time in the chest - but as you point out in the op, it was needed for my own place, not as a partial dowry for the marital home.
The chest has spent the last 20 years as extra storage for junk that’s too good to throw out and has recently become my patchwork storage (fabric that’s too good to throw out).
When I was a teenager–15?–my friends and I got a deal on cedar chest kits. I sanded, stained, and put it together. So I guess you can’t really say that my parents got it for me, though they paid for it; it was all our idea. I never put anything much in for the future–really it holds mementos and old letters. But I always called it my hope chest! It lives in our bedroom and functions as a half-clean clothes shelf.
My 10-yo daughter actually quite wants a hope chest, though I’ve kind of emphasized it as for when you live on your own as an adult. I don’t have room for another cedar chest so it’s sort of metaphorical, but I did get her her own recipe box with new copies of her favorite recipes (she will have to be able to cook for herself by the time she leaves home–food allergies). And she has her eye on some things I’ve sewn.
I wish I had a cedar chest NOW, I have dozens of wool and cashmere sweaters in danger of moths. My deceased m-i-l’s hope chest (which she bought herself) is in the basement. It’s made of maple, I think is cedar lined, and has a carving of a spinning wheel on the front. It’s full of old vinyl LPs. I wish I could look inside, but it’s currently being used as a TV stand for an old TV that weighs more than I do! (I think.) … I remember ads for hope chests in Seventeen magazine a hundred years ago and even then they seemed old-fashioned. Unless you inherited fine antiques and valuable textiles and porcelain from grand-mama, I can’t imagine any girl wanting one now. To put her Target place settings and $39 made-in-china quilts in?
I didn’t have an actual chest but there was a designated space of a spare room that I actually referred to as my “hope-corner”. I didn’t move out until I was 23 so by then I’d purchased all of the necessary kitchen and bathroom stuff. My parents pitched in a few things.
It does seem a bit old-fashioned now, but hey, handicrafts are all the rage. I know a bunch of hip girls who take sewing lessons. Besides, plenty of girls are secretly incurable romantics, and there’s something quite romantic about the whole hope chest idea.
When I say “hope chest” I am aware of the old tradition of filling it, and that I don’t have. I do, however, have my mother’s cedar chest that was always meant for me, and one of her dear friends made one of those “now it’s a baby’s bonnet, snip a thread and it’s a bride’s handkerchief” things for me when I was born, which I believe is, amusingly, in the chest along with a bunch of my mom’s old stuff. And try to find something more romantic than that. I dare you!
I have my mother’s Lane (brand name) cedar chest. Neither one of us ever called it a hope chest. It is heavy as the dickens, even empty, but it is right here in the same room with me now. Mom kept some of the Christmas stuff in it, so opening it and smelling the cedar still brings back Christmas memories. I keep toys and keepsakes in there. I don’t know, they migrated there. Mine looks very much like this one.
I never had a hope chest, since that tradition is not part of my parents’ culture. I do have a wooden bench in my room that doubles as a storage chest - the seat opens up and you can store things inside. Currently it holds clean linens, some books of my daughter’s, and a box of glycerin for making my own soaps.
It’s a cute idea, and maybe I’ll get my daughter one (if I ever have a daughter). Although not for marriage, more for the day she moves out on her own.
I never had one and I doubt my parents even know what one is.
I remember looking at camphorwood chests with my mum when I was a kid and being told they were for use as a Hope Chest (or Glory Box), and I was left with the impression that someday she would get me one. It never eventuated, but I don’t know why.
I remember hope chests, and may or may not have had something like it, but if so, it’s long gone. I’m 40+ now, getting married for the first time sometime in the next few months, and I’ve been laughing at myself because I’m basically building up a little trusseau to take to Vegas with me in June. It’s the closest I’ll get to a hope chest, I think.
If I understand it correctly, it would be a chest bought specifically for el ajuar (the linens that a girl used to start preparing in her teens, to eventually be used in her own home). I’ve known women who had a chest for their ajuar, but the chest didn’t have a special name and the linens might be moved out of it when the woman married. Most of my aunts had ajuares they’d been preparing since their teens, but some didn’t; I certainly did not. Those who got wedding dresses did not keep them beyond a few years; many of them bought a dress which could be adapted for daily wear, or wore normal clothes. We have these pictures of one of my great-grandmothers in her First Communion (aged 13) and her wedding (aged 20): the black lace dress is the same, in the first picture she wears a white veil and in the second one a black mantilla.
I do keep my linens in a chest, but it’s the one that was bought for my great-grandfather when he went away to University and which his daughter (my paternal grandma) gave me when I went to graduate school It’s oak, with brass fittings, iron locks and leather handles.
Pretty much, but you could put dishes and other items in too. As I’ve heard it, traditionally sons would inherit the land, and daughters got portable property–so they would fill up a chest with linens and dishes and whatnot, and ideally have some furniture as well to start a new home with. Best-case scenario for a girl would be to be able to furnish a simple home and have enough fabric to last at least a year (you’d have your own clothes and linens made up, and a bolt or two to make more, esp. for a baby). Oh, and quilts, of course.
One quilting book that I read claimed that women would piece and quilt 12 quilts to put in their hope chests, and piece a 13th quilt top. She didn’t quilt that 13th quilt top until she was engaged, and she called in her friends for a quilting bee.
The way I understood it, a hope chest would contain all the household linens that a new bride would need to set up housekeeping for a year, and possibly some other household goods. The bride was also expected to have enough clothes for a full year.
My daughter is 31. She commuted to college, and then kept living with us until she got a job in another state. She habitually purchased things for when she was going to move out, like furniture and various household goods. She didn’t see much point in buying sheets to put in a chest, because sheets and such are cheap enough today that you just buy them without having to save up for them. But she had a bed, a couch, loveseat, upholstered chair, coffee table and end tables, and lamps. Stuff like that. She didn’t have to find a furnished apartment. Oh, and she had books…lots and lots and LOTS of books. I bought her a couple of sort of foot locker, except that it was translucent plastic and had wheels. She says that she finds them very handy for storage, she lives in a place which has actual seasons so she puts her off season clothes in them.
It’s oak, with brass fittings, iron locks and leather handles.