Monday, October 24, 2011

Remembrances

Mike was in Iowa the last couple of weeks working with his brother to clean out their mom's house and get it ready to sell.  Kay moved in some time around 1969; there was a lot of stuff collected over the years that they had to go through.  The kids and I headed down last Tuesday to help finish the actual cleaning.  Miraculously everything had already been sorted, dumped or donated, and a few things we took home with us.


It should be stated: neither Mike nor I are collectors of stuff.  In fact we are tossers and we are totally okay with it.  I love to have garage sales and Mike likes to scour our house for the 3-day gig throwing things into the sell pile at all hours of the day.  That being said, he did decide to save a few things that I think are kind of cool.

Item #1: This was really on my top list.  It's a clock that Kay had told me a story about that I thought was a little special:  


During the last couple years of their marriage, Mike's dad was pretty sick and really couldn't get out much.  There were a lot of medical bills and not a ton of extra money for fun things.  But, when their anniversary came around, someone (and, sadly, I have no idea who) gave them a gift of money to get something as an anniversary present.  Kay went out shopping for something special and came home with this clock and was so excited to show it to David.  It was their 24th anniversary present; their last one.

Item #2:  This old camera that belonged to Mike's grandpa, I believe.


Mike emailed me a link and said I would probably think it was dumb, but he thought this was kind of cool.  Me?  Think a vintage camera dumb?  Hardly.  Pat found the flash surround a few days before we left.  We plan to put it up on our shelves to display along with a beautiful old college photo of Kay, just barely color touched and a college photo of Mike's dad that Mike copied from his aunt's collection.  

Item #3:  This giant dictionary.


I mean....it's huge....


I think it's from the mid-60's as well.  Mike thought it was kind of neat.  I was happy for him; he's the world's worst speller.  I told him he would finally be able to spell things with more accuracy; surely spellings haven't changed that much since 1965.

Item #4: Ceramic Bunnies


One of Kay's favorite hobbies from the time she was married and into the very early years I knew her was ceramics.  There were approximately 9,763,000 figures in her home.  Mike and Pat laid every single ceramic figure out for family members to come and look through if they wanted any special remembrances.  Mike referred to that Sunday morning as "the Church Bazaar".  He pulled these aside beforehand.  I had no idea Kay had these, but I think they are pretty stinkin' cute.  We'll pull them out at Easter in homage to the roughly 4,000 bunnies Mike said she had.

Item #5: Pocket Watch


This thing took a lickin' and just stopped tickin'.  There were two pocket watches that Mike and Pat flipped a coin for.  Mike won the watch that didn't work.  I think we'll be heading to a watch maker to take a look at it.  We will also be toting along a wall clock with pendulum.  Mike thinks the date on back of it says 1911 and there are miscellaneous pieces that may or may not belong to said clock.  He was more fascinated with the history of these things than anything.

Item #6: Hand Carved Horse and Wagon



I believe his grandpa's brother carved this by hand.  The bottom says, 'Carved by...1947'.  We have to figure out how the heck a person cleans in between all the little grooves and we aren't totally sure where it's going to go that it will be in sight, yet out of tiny hands' ways, but it is definitely a cool piece of family art.

There were a few other things Mike collected: a few boxes of records no one knew existed, a couple pictures, and I'm sure a few things I have yet to discover.  But, I thought these were kind of neat.

Saturday night Mike finished cleaning the floors and Sunday we packed up with some final pictures taken in front of the 'ol homestead:





It's a house that's been witness to lots of memories.  Hopefully there's a family ready to move in and make all new ones for themselves!

2 comments:

GinMan69 said...

The Unabridged Dictionary is cool! We had one growing up. Look up the word "BUG" and if there IS NOT any reference to computers....you know it's old.

GinMan69 said...

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