I went to an estate sale today. Tattered and burnt by age, sepia-toned photos were strewn from room to room. The ruffled-edge pictures of a bare-bottomed babe on the bear rug, the proud mama with apron and bun and bouncing baby on lap, the stiff and the formal portrait of the stern young man with suit and the removable bone-stiffened collar beginning his career in earnest, they were from the past-but had no relevance to the future anymore.
These pictures were not worth a thousand words; their stories had died with the owner, no one to carry on the tales. No tales to bring the past alive. They lay in piles voiceless and dead.
There were letters to West Barrett Street from 1920, Christmas cards authentic art deco, more letters to West Roy Street, strewn from room to room. I found parish directories-one dated 1908 and two from several years later-for the Downtown Plymouth Congregational Church. I picked them up and put them on a table in the front of the doorway where the women who were working the sale could see them; they could donate them to the church's archives.
Or could they? Some folks just don't get history... the "story" part of the word. History lay from floor to floor, now nameless, disordered; now rendered anonymous and useless.
KUAY annuals from the '20s, documents of the '30s, scrapbooks where little heart-shaped corner holders held together what was left of this boy's life, that young women's career, a family's unique tale of existence. Tomorrow they would shovel it all up in a Dumpster and this once-yesterday will vanish, removed from today and tomorrow forever.
This very real record, rendered useless because those who cared enough to collect it all did not care enough to keep the stories alive by writing it down or donating it to a history organization that would preserve, perpetrate and place great value on the details and photos of the collection of this lifetime.
Those working the estate sale were not even sentimental or curious about the lives that lay literally at their feet; that "stuff" would pay their salaries for the days of the sale. They had no sense of history. They could have added relevance to the collection, arranging it by date, place and names.
But instead, there were just thousands of slightly mildewed old postcards, portraits and receipts strewn from room to room. The story of the babe on the bear rug: I saw two shots, and I wondered why? How many other babies did mama have to hold and cuddle on her lap before her life was over? Was the young man important to some significant Seattle business? What did that women staring out at me from the gilded frame once know that I will never know now?
To a historian, a keeper of the stories and the memorabilia, this is so very sad, the beginnings, middles and ends all mixed up, unknown. How can this happen? The scrapbooks were put together 80 years ago with wonderful vintage materials that had the charm of yesteryear, at the hands of a diligent collector... hours and hours of care to keep the story... now just tomorrow's compost.
It is so much more. I wanted to scream to everyone pawing through it all with abandon. Like Christmas Past of Dickens' story A Christmas Carol, I wanted to scream, "Beware of a past that stays there."
The Magnolia Historical Society is about stories, preservation and collection. The Magnolia Historical Essay Project II will prove it in pictures and a thousand words. We help folks preserve their family history, the history of Magnolia.
It is what we are all about! The Magnolia Historical Society has established a photo archive and memorabilia archive at Allen Library Special Collections. We accept donations of Magnolia history, and it is organized and archived in a safe place where folks can have access to it for research or curiosity.
Call if you have a photo collection you want to preserve or a piece of Magnolia memorabilia. Several weeks ago we were handed the complete history of the creation of the Pop Mounger Pool, a complete collection ready for a future volume of Magnolia History.
Monica Wooton is a member of the Magnolia Historical Society.[[In-content Ad]]
