Passing on the stories
21/09/15 01:03
On this visit to our daughter and son-in-law, we took a piece of furniture to deliver to them. It is a sideboard or buffet, a piece that was designed sit next to a dining room table and hold the tablecloths and other items used at the table. It also could be used as a serving area for extra dishes when the table is full. This particular buffet matches a table that we had previously delivered to their home. The table and buffet have a bit of a story to go with them.
Back in the 1930’s couples getting married had to figure out a way of life that didn’t involve much money. There wasn’t much money around in those days. This was especially true in rural places where the Great Depression was taking its toll on farm families and jobs were scarce. My father-in-law used to say, “Everyone was poor during the depression. Charlotte’s family was really poor.” Charlotte was my mother-in-law. Her father died leaving the family without a source of income. Here older brother and sisters were out of the home, but Charlotte and her mother had to make do by taking in laundry and accepting other odd jobs.They lived in Isabel, in Grant County, South Dakota. Just out of town, across the Zwiebach County line, her sister was trying to get started in life in a new marriage. The new couple was living in a farm house raising a few head of sheep and digging coal by hand from the hillside to sell to the school district to heat the school. It was a hard life and one of the entertainments for the new couple was to look through the Montgomery Wards catalogue and imagine the things they might buy when they saved enough money.
The entertainment value of the catalogues, which were free to customers, was great enough that the young couple saved the catalogues for all of their married years. We had to figure out what to do with all of those old catalogues when we helped clean out their place as they moved into a care center.
One item that caught their attention was furniture. They imagined having a dining room set for their farmhouse. Wards had a table with two leafs, six chairs and a sideboard that they admired.
They not only admired the set. They saved their money. And when they had enough they ordered that set. It came on the train to Mobridge and the couple drove up and picked it up. It served as the centerpiece of life in their little farm house for four decades.
Back in the late 1970’s, Susan and I graduated from Theological Seminary and accepted the call to serve two congregations in Southwest North Dakota. We moved into the parsonage in Hettinger without any furniture. We owned one small desk. That was it. We managed to pick up a bed and a kitchen table with chairs and got a small sofa and chair that had been in the family but were no longer needed. It was at that time that the time came to sell the farm in South Dakota. We were offered the dining room set (and the Montgomery Wards catalogue from which it was ordered). We borrowed a pickup truck and made the trip down to get the table, buffet and chairs.
The chairs were in pretty rough shape and needed quite a bit of re-gluing, but the set served well. The parsonage didn’t have a dining room, but there was a corner of the living room that served the purpose. The table was a place for entertaining guests.
When we moved from North Dakota to Idaho, the table came with us and had an honored place in our dining room. That home had a smaller kitchen and we ate our family meals around that table in the dining room for a decade. It was the site of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and plenty of guest sat around the table.
From Idaho, the table was moved to South Dakota. It suffered a break in one of the braces on the legs in that move, the only damage we had during that move. Out came the glue and the repair was soon completed. It moved into the dining area of our kitchen in our home and was our family table through our children’s high school years.
After having served two generations of our family and enduring several moves, the table and the buffet were replaced with another set, also obtained from family members. They were placed into storage for a short time. The table made its move to our daughter’s home in Missouri in 2011. Now in its third generation, it was refinished for the second time and continues to serve.
Last week the buffet came out of storage, was wrapped in furniture pads and made the trip to Missouri to join the table. It, too, will need to be refinished.
We have several pieces of furniture in our home that have come to us in the family and are serving their third or fourth generation. Some are even in their fifth or sixth generation. But old furniture, handed down through the family, isn’t the style of the generations who are younger than us. Some of the things in our home might be in their last generation of family ownership. It is hard to imagine what will happen to those things when their time comes. So it is nice to know that the table and buffet have a home in a new generation.
We have reached the stage in our lives when one of our jobs is sorting. We have to decide what to keep and what to pass on. Not everything can stay in the family. Some things need to go to other families through the thrift store or a rummage sale. As we sort, we need to remember that the items themselves are not the source of family meaning and values. More important than the items are the family stories. Even when the items are gone the stories remain.
Our job is to make sure we pass on the stories.
Back in the 1930’s couples getting married had to figure out a way of life that didn’t involve much money. There wasn’t much money around in those days. This was especially true in rural places where the Great Depression was taking its toll on farm families and jobs were scarce. My father-in-law used to say, “Everyone was poor during the depression. Charlotte’s family was really poor.” Charlotte was my mother-in-law. Her father died leaving the family without a source of income. Here older brother and sisters were out of the home, but Charlotte and her mother had to make do by taking in laundry and accepting other odd jobs.They lived in Isabel, in Grant County, South Dakota. Just out of town, across the Zwiebach County line, her sister was trying to get started in life in a new marriage. The new couple was living in a farm house raising a few head of sheep and digging coal by hand from the hillside to sell to the school district to heat the school. It was a hard life and one of the entertainments for the new couple was to look through the Montgomery Wards catalogue and imagine the things they might buy when they saved enough money.
The entertainment value of the catalogues, which were free to customers, was great enough that the young couple saved the catalogues for all of their married years. We had to figure out what to do with all of those old catalogues when we helped clean out their place as they moved into a care center.
One item that caught their attention was furniture. They imagined having a dining room set for their farmhouse. Wards had a table with two leafs, six chairs and a sideboard that they admired.
They not only admired the set. They saved their money. And when they had enough they ordered that set. It came on the train to Mobridge and the couple drove up and picked it up. It served as the centerpiece of life in their little farm house for four decades.
Back in the late 1970’s, Susan and I graduated from Theological Seminary and accepted the call to serve two congregations in Southwest North Dakota. We moved into the parsonage in Hettinger without any furniture. We owned one small desk. That was it. We managed to pick up a bed and a kitchen table with chairs and got a small sofa and chair that had been in the family but were no longer needed. It was at that time that the time came to sell the farm in South Dakota. We were offered the dining room set (and the Montgomery Wards catalogue from which it was ordered). We borrowed a pickup truck and made the trip down to get the table, buffet and chairs.
The chairs were in pretty rough shape and needed quite a bit of re-gluing, but the set served well. The parsonage didn’t have a dining room, but there was a corner of the living room that served the purpose. The table was a place for entertaining guests.
When we moved from North Dakota to Idaho, the table came with us and had an honored place in our dining room. That home had a smaller kitchen and we ate our family meals around that table in the dining room for a decade. It was the site of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and plenty of guest sat around the table.
From Idaho, the table was moved to South Dakota. It suffered a break in one of the braces on the legs in that move, the only damage we had during that move. Out came the glue and the repair was soon completed. It moved into the dining area of our kitchen in our home and was our family table through our children’s high school years.
After having served two generations of our family and enduring several moves, the table and the buffet were replaced with another set, also obtained from family members. They were placed into storage for a short time. The table made its move to our daughter’s home in Missouri in 2011. Now in its third generation, it was refinished for the second time and continues to serve.
Last week the buffet came out of storage, was wrapped in furniture pads and made the trip to Missouri to join the table. It, too, will need to be refinished.
We have several pieces of furniture in our home that have come to us in the family and are serving their third or fourth generation. Some are even in their fifth or sixth generation. But old furniture, handed down through the family, isn’t the style of the generations who are younger than us. Some of the things in our home might be in their last generation of family ownership. It is hard to imagine what will happen to those things when their time comes. So it is nice to know that the table and buffet have a home in a new generation.
We have reached the stage in our lives when one of our jobs is sorting. We have to decide what to keep and what to pass on. Not everything can stay in the family. Some things need to go to other families through the thrift store or a rummage sale. As we sort, we need to remember that the items themselves are not the source of family meaning and values. More important than the items are the family stories. Even when the items are gone the stories remain.
Our job is to make sure we pass on the stories.