Not every family has expensive family heirlooms, valuable jewels, china, and silverware to hand out to all of Gramp's and Granny's offspring when they go, but there's probably something that means a lot to each one. It's the simple things that a grandchild will remember - like the cookie jar or the banana pudding bowl. Hopefully the recipe for the pudding has already been handed down. Maybe Gramps was a carpenter and his old hand tools would be priceless to a grandson who is also a carpenter. Maybe one of his grandsons was his special fishing buddy and his old rod and reel would look awesome hanging on the wall at the camp.
There might be some special things like the sewing machine that your mom taught you to sew on or the buffet that still has the ice tea glass circle stains on the top. It may look like an old outdated worn out piece of furniture to some, but others will fight over it.
Perhaps you have an old handmade quilt that Granny made that is warm and heavy. It may have been used on the bed at night, on the floor during the day for the babies to play on, or on the back seat of the car for protection from those vinyl seats that got so hot in the summertime. Even if it's seen its better days and no longer usable, it can be cut into smaller pieces and framed or made into pillows and given to several family members. They call that a "cutter" quilt. We used the quilt shown below all the time, but it was still in great shape.
Sometimes kids will fight over the simplest things. See this meat fork? My sister and I both wanted it. I had my eyes on other things so I told her she could have it - and she took it. Then she brought it back. So I took it. Mom turned over so many pork chops with this fork, and fried chicken, and round steaks. As you can see it's a little burnt from where the flame of the gas stove licked at it. The fork should have probably stayed with the cast iron pots she cooked all that deliciousness in. But for now, I have the fork, but not the pots.
Here's something else that got fussed over. A silly plastic Woody Woodpecker cup! Mom had ordered two of them for my brother and me from the back of a cereal box when we were kids. After we outgrew them, one of them (his) ended up being used to scoop birdseed for years and years, and most of the paint had worn off. My brother mentioned that he wanted it, but then I found the other one up in the top kitchen cabinet in almost like new condition and I teased him with it. I told him he could have the beat up one. But I put the good one in the box for him since he lives out of town and didn't get to pick and choose the good stuff like us girls did. Well, neither of us ended up with it because someone broke in the storeroom and took the box it was in. (Remind me to tell you what else got stolen.)
Did Granny have a set of coffee cups and saucers? Maybe cream and sugar bowls?
If so, several of the grand daughters or daughter-in-laws will want one.
We spent just about every Thanksgiving at my grandparents' house in Hosston, Louisiana because my grandmother's birthday was that week. All my aunts and uncles and cousins were there. We lived five hours away so we didn't get to see them very often. That was before interstate highways. Two lanes... all. the. way. Did Granny have a turkey platter or other special serving dishes that only came out for holidays? A salad bowl? A serving tray? It doesn't have to be fancy. It just has to bring back memories.
Perhaps there was a key to the old family home.
My dad kept this skeleton key to our old house hanging on the
key rack in our new house even though it was no longer needed.
I brought it home and framed it.
My dad kept this skeleton key to our old house hanging on the
key rack in our new house even though it was no longer needed.
I brought it home and framed it.
Mom had plenty of souvenirs and knick knacks - some probably came from her mom. There's so many of them that if I ever have them (grandkids) there will be enough to trickle down to my great great great greats.... but I doubt they'll know who I was or where all this stuff came from. So I'll enjoy them and the memories while I still can.
Did you or one of the grandchildren give a gift that can be returned to them when Granny passes away? I bought this beautiful emerald green decanter set for my mom when I was eight years old. Our neighbors, the Simons, took me Christmas shopping one year and when I saw this I just had to get it. It cost a whopping $6.99 at Gibson's back in 1964. When mom got older she would always say "If you see anything you want in there (the china cabinet) you can have it." Her china cabinet had become so cluttered with other things that at some point I decided it was time for me to take this beauty back. Made in Italy!
Did your Granny love flowers like mine did? Grandma had all kinds of blooming things. I'm not 100% positive this Calla Lily came from her yard, but that's where I think it came from. It sure was pretty last spring. Yes, plants can be heirlooms, too. Why not?
This is my grandma, Bessie Sessum, showing off some of her flowers by the back door.
She was always happy to dig some up for anyone who wanted.
Those portraits of Granny's parents, people you never knew, hanging in the hallway.... they may look old and faded, but someday you'll wish you knew what happened to those old pictures. I've tried tracking down photos of my grandfather's parents that probably hung in the bedroom of my grandparents' home. I remember those old oval frames with the bubbled glass, but I didn't know who those old people were. Now that I've been doing genealogy for 40+ years these are the only two great grandparents that I don't have pictures of and I don't know what they looked like. In the past few years I've looked up obituaries and addresses to find the children of cousins in other states that I've never met hoping that someone has those photos. With all the genealogy websites nowadays, I'm hoping that someday they'll turn up. I don't have to have the original. A digital copy will do just fine. Email it to me if you have them. Meanwhile, my dear sister bought me this heirloom portrait last Christmas. We don't know who this woman is, but we call her Aunt Bea.
Speaking of digital photos.... no need to fight over that box of old pictures and important documents anymore. Get someone to scan them all and give a digital copy to everyone. I've got most of ours scanned. Just trying to figure out how to label and organize before I copy them.
We were crushed. Sad. Mad. Furious. We cried over it. We prayed about it. We called the cops. We called the pawn shops. We checked Ebay. We searched around the neighborhood thinking that maybe the boxes would be in someone's trash. We had our suspects. But it was gone. The family bible was in one of those boxes, too, along with the quilt pictured earlier in this post. Our grandmother made that quilt by hand.
But before I start ranting about why can't people just leave other people's stuff alone?.... We found the punch bowl. Four years later! It was a miracle, I tell you! It was meant to come home. My brother and his wife were here visiting for the weekend and decided to stop at a flea market in a small town not too far away. They could have stopped at any other flea market, but they chose that one. My sister and her husband were with them. It was a huge shop and they all went different directions looking at different things. My sister spotted it and went to get the others. It had a $250 price tag on it. They told the shop owner that we had a punch bowl just like it that had been stolen. He told them who he bought it from. The woman lived a block from my parents' house. He said if we could prove it was ours, we could have it back. It took about a week, but we rounded up some picture of the punch bowl in use like the one above and he gave it back to us - no charge. Happy ending!
What I'm trying to say about heirlooms is that there is plenty of stuff to go around even if your ancestors aren't rich. You may have to pull straws sometimes if you can't agree on who gets what, (like the meat fork) but the loser should get to pick next. If your granny has something you want, tell her. She may give it to you now, she might put it in her will, or she just might write you name on it for later. It's probably not the value that matters to you anyway.... it's the memories.
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