Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Heirloom

Glenn Yoder is a dumpy little guy who lived in the same house, between here and Harrisburg, for 80 years, I'm told. His mom was a sister to Paul's grandma Lena.
Glenn never married or travelled or did any number of other things the rest of us do to make our lives interesting. Instead he stood out in his front yard day after day, in his overalls, a bit hunched over, with a little bemused smile on his face, and watched people go by on Diamond Hill Drive and waved at them.
He also saved things. When he was moved to a nursing home recently, cleaning his house was a huge job, I was told.
His nieces held a sale a few days ago, and I stopped by. The amount of old stuff was astonishing, and this was after the family and various antique dealers had been through it. A table full of old calendars from the 1940's on. Old shaving brushes. Rusted galvanized buckets. A cream separator. A milk stool. Ink bottles. Wooden barrels. Sauerkraut crocks. And much much more.
Since we live in the original house where Glenn's mom and Paul's grandma grew up, one of Glenn's nieces pulled me aside and offered me a picture they had found that must have belonged to Paul's great-grandma before she ever married. It is about 8"x10" and has a black mat around a print of red roses in a glass vase. It is beautiful and in good condition, and on the back it still says, in proper old-fashioned handwriting, "Annie Hochstetler."
Of course I got it. I want to frame it and hang it around here somewhere, and wouldn't that be something if I managed to put it right where Annie herself hung it when she lived here?

Quote of the Day:
"We Smuckers should be ruling the world, if you ask me."
--Matt

5 comments:

  1. To Matt -
    Naahh. It's the Yoders who should rule the world.

    ReplyDelete
  2. To anonymous--
    Yoders should run the world? True, it would be nice to have creative people who care about each other and have lots of feelings in leadership, but what happens when...the microphone doesn't work and NOBODY can hear the speech...the entire ruling family falls victim to a vague, debilitating illness...and the economy deteriorates rapidly because nobody likes to talk about money. :-P
    *note*
    Please don't be offended if you are a Yoder and my description does not apply to you. I do not know many Yoders besides my Mother's family, and am simply attempting to laugh at some of their quirks, and make my mom howl with laughter as I know she will when she reads this, not disparage every Yoder out there. Thank you. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. AMY!!!!
    (yes, I laughed out loud)
    Go, Smuckers! Run the world. We'll stay in the background and share our feelings.

    ReplyDelete
  4. With a name like Sm....oh, never mind, you've heard that often enough.

    I should visit Matt's blog again to see what OneWorldGummint stuff he's espousing now.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Cool picture story! I remember how thrilled I was to come across a picture from the 40's with my dad in it in front of my great granny Lizzy's house. I remember that house from when I was a kid! It even boasted a usable outhouse (whicxh I despised!)

    After Granny went into a nursing home, I took my grandmother back down there and I took pictures of my 2 oldest girls at Granny's house and then switched them over to sepia tone. It was so cool. The house is probably gone now as is my Granny and my Beloved Grandmother but the pictures are a nice way of remembering!
    Connie

    ReplyDelete