Friday, June 19, 2015

Ten Things of Significance

Piper at Talk About Cheesecake started a game or challenge called Ten Things of Significance, wherein you take pictures of things that are, well, significant to you that you could put in an imaginary box. She tagged Sarah at Amycake and the Dude, Sarah tagged me, and now it's my turn. These shall become my Ten Things of Thankful for this week.

(Before I go further, let me stress that it is VERY DIFFICULT to pick only 10 things to go in this box. And that these are by NO MEANS the MOST significant things in my possession, which leads me to think there may be a Part 2 in my future, because this feels rather like Sophie's Choice.)

Here's my imaginary box.

Picturing it? Good.


1. This is an oak secretary that once belonged to my two great aunts. I'm not sure of its age, but it was around when my mom was young, and she's 83. They kept things that they treasured inside it, and I do the same.





I am including a large sub-category to #1 on my list which may or may not be cheating, but I'm doing it anyway, because there are several very special items inside this bookcase that you can't see.


These are my favorites of the favorite items in here:




My mom's Shirley Temple doll. My mom got this doll for Christmas in the mid 1930s. It was an expensive gift, and the whole family went together to get it for her, but she never liked it or played with it, preferring soft baby dolls over this hard doll. It is in excellent condition because of that.




This is Sunshine. She belonged to my mom's brother, my Uncle Bradley, and I played with her a lot when I visited my great aunts (can you tell by the lovely dress I once made for her out of scraps of fabric?). When my great aunts both died, my uncle didn't want Sunshine, because it always kind of embarrassed him that he had had a doll, so he told me I could have her.  





This is my great aunt Daisy's kidskin doll. She LOVED that doll, as evidenced by her holding it in the photograph, where she is about 2 years old. When I was a child, she talked about getting her fixed up with a wig, but she (fortunately) never found one that suited her when she would look at the Ben Franklin store. I love her. (By the way, this is the same Daisy who had a pet chicken as a child, said chicken being allowed to roost on the back of a dining room chair at night, newspapers spread on the floor under her.)




My great aunts had an aunt who lived to be 99 years old. She lived on the farm she had lived on most of her life up until her last five years or so, when she moved in with her son and his wife. When we visited my great aunts, we would often go visit Aunt Bessie. She lived in a two-story house that had two front doors, sitting at right angles to each other; one going into a parlor and one going into another room, but for the life of me, I can't remember what room that was. Dining room, maybe? We always entered through the back door, into the kitchen. She kept a pan on the back of her stove where she scraped plates and gave the scraps to the barn cats outside, which I thought was pretty fascinating, as we just gave OUR cat canned catfood. She lived on the bottom floor only by this time in her life, but the upstairs was just as she left it, with bedrooms that had ornate beds with enormous, fluffy featherbeds on them. We loved going up there and rolling around on those featherbeds, and when she moved to her son's home, I BEGGED my parents to get me one of them. They didn't for many reasons, the least of which was that I'm pretty sure the headboard would have touched the ceiling in my little bedroom, if not gone right through it. Oh, one time, my friend Lynnette went out to Aunt Bessie's with us, and she and I dared each other to lick a salt lick block we found out in the pasture behind the house (which we both did). 

This little cup was Aunt Bessie's mush cup, and she drank her mush out of it every morning when she was a child. She gave it to me, and it is a precious possession.



The raised glass is a bear. It didn't photograph well.

These are my great aunts, Edith (or Ecie, as we called her) and Daisy. This is one of the last pictures of them together before Ecie's health began to fail (she died in late 1978, Daisy in 1983). I still dream about them being alive and visiting their house, where I spent so much time and have such warm memories.





2. and 3. This also belonged to my great aunts. This is a real, honest-to-goodness telephone switchboard. My great aunt Daisy was the telephone operator in the small town of Urich, Missouri, from 1929 until the office closed in 1960 and the town went to direct dial telephones. Her sister was the night operator from 1939 until the office closed, and when they retired, the telephone company gave them the switchboard. My brother and I have many happy memories of us playing on the switchboard at their house (they kept it on their glassed-in porch). 

The dog is mine. It's Nipper, the RCA mascot, and when I worked at RCA Records in Nashville, EVERYONE seemed to have one of them in their office but ME. When artists would visit the offices, they would always stop and sign Nippers, and I REALLLLLY wanted one. My office was across from the mailroom, and one day, I came in to find a Nipper sitting outside the mailroom door. It sat there for a week or so, and no one seemed to have a plan for him, so every day, I would move him a couple of inches further down the hall and closer to my office, until one day, I grabbed him by the ear and pulled him inside. He's been mine ever since. He isn't signed by very many artists, as I acquired him about a year before I left the company and moved to LA, but he is signed by Eddie Arnold, Lorrie Morgan, Clint Black, Martina McBride, Aaron Tippin and Restless Heart, among others. Aaron even gave him a palmetto tree tattoo like the one he had on his own arm.




4. Books. We have a lot of books. This entire wall is a built in bookcase, loaded with books and photos and other nice things. These shelves hold mostly my books, like my Sue Grafton collection.




5. As many of you know, Joplin was hit with an EF-5 tornado on May 22, 2011. Over one-third of the town was damaged or destroyed, 161 people were killed, and over 1,000 injured. The dance studio where my daughter spent much of her time was one of the many businesses that was destroyed. Her beloved dance teacher, Miss Karen, had passed away from cancer less than five months earlier, and all of it was quite a blow to Emma. We were able to salvage a few things from the studio, and this is my treasure: Karen's reading glasses were still in the drawer of her desk in the office. I keep them in my kitchen window and wear them when I'm needing to read something smaller than the big "E" on the eye chart, and I think of her every time and miss her.



6. This is also a memento from the dance studio. Miss Karen used it as a prop when the little girls were doing the "Monkey See, Monkey Do" dance. It was still in a cabinet in the studio, covered with tornado snot but otherwise unscathed. It sits in my living room, on the floor by the fireplace.



7. We took a delightful family vacation 12 years ago to eastern Pennsylvania to visit my husband's sister and her family, then drove through upstate New York, visiting the Finger Lakes, Lake Ontario, and Niagara Falls before heading for home (you can read about the story of how my son was involved with the big blackout of 2003 here; go ahead, I'll wait). While driving along the shore of Lake Ontario, we stopped to visit Golden Hill State Park and got a tour of Thirty Mile Lighthouse. It was such a delightful visit that we bought this watercolor print before we left.


8. When we got married almost 22 years ago, my husband bought me a dozen roses and had them waiting for me in our hotel room in Kansas City on the first leg of our honeymoon. He also gave me the hobnail jar and told me that, when the roses finally dried out, we would put the petals in the jar and have them always. It was very sweet, until I had to fly back to LA from Kansas City with them between my feet the entire trip. My husband took the picture of me in our backyard in Ventura with the wedding license and the roses in my arms before we left for Carmel for the rest of our honeymoon. I found the framed print of 1 Corinthians 13:4-13, which were included in our wedding ceremony, in the gift shop of a restaurant in San Luis Obispo where we stopped on our way to Carmel. 


9. These are the graduation plates each of my kids made when they were in pre-k. I love that both of them included a cat in their picture; Kyle drew Helen, who died in 2003, and Emma drew Fletcher. It's also interesting to me to see the difference in their skill levels, as Kyle was 6 months younger than Emma at this same point in their pre-k years, and you can see it in the details of the pictures.



10. We might have, at some point, gotten carried away with refrigerator magnets. It started with just a couple of them, because everyone needs some magnets on their fridge, and escalated when we started buying them every time we traveled. There are also a few pictures on there. And a lot of fingerprints. Don't look too closely.



I hope you imagined a REALLY BIG box.

According to Piper's rules, I'm supposed to nominate two bloggers to take this challenge, so I shall nominate Marisa at SquaareKat and Kristi at Thankful Me. No pressure, ladies, it took me 6 weeks to get mine done (sorry, Sarah!),plus I still have an outstanding post to do for Vanessa (I haven't forgotten, really!).

Link up your Ten Things of Thankful, right here, right now.






Ten Things of Thankful


 Your hosts

Join the Ten Things of Thankful Facebook Group

42 comments:

  1. I love this! What a great peek into your heart and soul. That antique secretary is awesome...as is the hardwood floor it sits upon! Your aunts' place sounds like the source of many a wonderful childhood adventure. I don't think I could have pulled myself away from the phone operator's switchboard.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, May! My floor is pretty close to the same age as the secretary - my house is around 90 years old. My great aunts' home was the BEST. No rules for us when we visited. None. I could mess in the kitchen or wander around town (population 400) to my heart's content.

      Delete
  2. You have so much family history in your home. I'm glad the tornado left your things alone, even though I'm curious about what tornado snot looks like.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, me, too! I know they're just things, but I'd rather not lose them, if at all possible.
      I have a couple of things in my basement that still have some tornado snot on them. I'll try to get a clear picture of it and send it to you. Think of a mixture of dirt, fiberglass, lead, asbestos, anything else that might be picked up, mixed with rain and flung on everything, and you'll get an idea.

      Delete
  3. Thank you for sharing the photos of these precious things.
    I love the idea of making graduation plates.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Romi! The graduation plates are one of the hardest things I do as a pre-k teacher! It's a kit that has a special paper circle the size of the plate. You can write on it with any washable marker, send it to the company, and they transfer it onto a melamine plate and send it back. The hard part is doing it with each of my students and having them draw a picture of themselves with the markers without making any mistakes or making a hole in the special paper!

      Delete
  4. Therapist: "So tell me about growing up."
    Man: "My parents provided us with a wonderful upbringing. Family vacations, cherished momentos were scattered everywhere in our home as symbols of our heritage and love for each other... but there was this one thing ..."
    Therapist: "...Go on"
    Man: "Well, in 2003..."

    ReplyDelete
  5. Fantastic, Dyanne. Those dolls are incredible. And such wonderful stories go with each one.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wow....that Shirley Temple is quite a rarity!!! Great dolls, Dianne!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Someone on the internet was asking $1,000 for a Shirley Temple doll just like the one I have. Wow! I wouldn't sell it for anything, though.

      Delete
  7. very cool
    (hey! did you always have cats? or were the cats on the plates, like, presage insights and such)

    hobnail jar is that what they call them? interesting name

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've had cats my entire life. My husband had never had one before, but I had two when we got married, so, as he says, he was a dog person and I was a cat person, so we compromised and got a cat.

      Delete
  8. loved going through your 10 things of significance - love the dolls they mean so much too you... the see no evil, hear no evil monkeys are great too I love that saying so I have few things like that as well.. oh the wedding roses so touching - thank you for nominating me i would love showing everyone my box and what's inside... - LOL !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Marisa! I never really intended to leave the monkeys in my living room, but they've been there for four years now, so I think they're there to stay.
      I'm looking forward to your post!

      Delete
  9. Sooooo is this the bit where I try not to say anything about 'early granny chic'? ;)

    Nipper is AWESOME :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You did a good job not making fun of my decorating.

      Nipper is da bomb!

      Delete
  10. Oh my word, so much history!! I love it. My family is full of non-sentimental OCD neat freaks who keep little to no things. I would love to have some things from my great-grandma's house, especially a cuckoo clock that hung in the living room (or at least know where it is). I'll have to ask my grandma about it.
    Walking through your house must be like walking through a museum. So many stories.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My second great aunt died when I was a year out of college. When we were going through all the stuff, I wanted SO MUCH, but I didn't have room for very much. There are things I am sorry got sold, things with tremendous meaning to me, but you can't keep it all. Some day, my kids and their kids will have to go through my treasures, and they won't all be that important to them. Wow, that was a Debbie Downer, wasn't it?!

      Delete
  11. I LOVE YOUR HOUSE!!!!!!! When I can I get to Joplin? Seriously, I love everything you showed but the dolls, which kindasorta creep me out. That secretary is beautiful! And all my decorating is based on tiny, worthless (to others) heirlooms. I nearly included our fridge in my list, too. Can you believe it's more covered than yours?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, thanks, Sarah! Come see me any time! And I guess I can see where the dolls might creep you out, especially the scalped one. I cleaned a few things off the fridge before I took the picture. There's a magnetic clip in the middle of the freezer door that had some highly important paper clipped to it, and it sullied the look.

      Delete
  12. And the switchboard! SO FRICKIN COOL!!! And the glasses. What a lovely treasure.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Isn't that da bomb?! The Historical Society in the town where my great aunts lived would really like to get their hands on that switchboard, but no dice.

      Delete
  13. All those heirlooms are amazing, but I have to admit that the dolls do look kind of creepy :-) Glad you managed to safe Sunshine.

    Love the story of your husband and the roses, so very, very sweet. Remember the story of hubby supposed to be at my place around 5pm the day before our wedding. Around 6pm I started getting nervous and tried to call him but he didn't answer. Being the extremely insecure person I was back then, I was spending my time suppressing panic attacks until he finally showed up around 7. He had missed his train because he forgot to pick up the wedding bouquet and had to walk back to pick it up, and then he didn't have any signal until he arrived in my town. But the flowers were definitely worth going back for!!

    Hope you have a wonderful week, Dyanne!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Old dolls really are creepy, aren't they? I think the kidskin doll being scalped doesn't help a bit.
      Aww, you have a flower story, too! Somewhere in my blog, I have a post about the day we got married and my husband almost not making it on time to get the license and a few other fiascos. I think it was in August 2013, if you're ever bored and want to look it up.

      Delete
  14. I love this post--and not just because you asked me to play along, too! That dog is so much bigger than I imagined! I love all the history and stories behind the objects you selected. I have a collection of plates similar to those your kids made. Some of the elementary school classes seemed to do those plates every year at Christmastime, so for a while there, I was receiving multiple plates each Christmas.
    I still have to get my post written for this week, but I've got it partially composed in my head already. I'll write the 10 Things of Significance post for another week.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's really hard to limit yourself to only 10 things (as you can tell by the way I cheated). The dog is HUGE. Little secret? He has an autograph on his pee pee. Not my idea, I assure you.
      It can take us a good 30 minutes to get ONE plate done at preschool, depending on the skill level of the child. And that's after we talk about how to draw a person and I demonstrate! Elementary kids would be a lot easier! Did you let your kids eat off of them? I never did; I was afraid they would get damaged.
      No rush on your 10 Things post! It took me 6 weeks to get it done when Sarah tagged me!

      Delete
    2. We still eat off of them! They hold up well, even in the dishwasher.

      Delete
    3. I just couldn't bring myself to let them use the plates!

      Delete
  15. So now that I got past the blackout thing....that switchboard and the rca dog have got to be the coolest things! I could live in your house. What a cool place. I think youve seen photos of parts of the barn where I live...we could trade for a while and feel right at home!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love YOUR house! I've seen the pictures, and I find myself eyeballing barns that I drive by, transforming them in my mind into a home.

      Delete
  16. What a great post! Seeing all the antiques is so much fun. I have always loved browsing antique stores, estate sales, you name it. Learning the history behind the objects makes it even more interesting.

    My mother used to answer the phone on a large switchboard. I used love to watch her do that.

    One of my old dolls that got handed down to my children received lots of love and looked similar to the one your brother had. : )

    This is such a great idea for a blog hop.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The only thing I don't like about antique stores and the like is when there are old pictures for sale. It makes me sad that no one wants them anymore.
      My great aunts retired before I was born, so I never got to see them working the switchboard for real, but they would demonstrate if asked :)
      I hope Kristi tags you for the blog hop HINT HINT KRISTI!

      Delete
  17. Fabulous favorites! I particularly love the graduation plates. How sweet of an idea was that of your husband with the roses? So romantic!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The rose thing was SO romantic and yet SUCH a pain in the ass to execute! Worth it, though!

      Delete
  18. What a beautiful collection of history and memories! The secretary is lovely. I love furniture that has been passed down and has a history.

    A Sue Grafton collection?? She's got to me one of my favorite authors. I've been hoping for a new release soon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! I love the old furniture, too. My mom has a pie safe that I want someday (don't know where I'll put it, but I'll figure it out later) that was on a wagon train where my great, great grandfather was accidentally shot and killed by someone cleaning a gun. My great, great grandmother and her two little boys kept on with the wagon train until they reached their destination (which was with family).
      I have all the Sue Grafton books and re-read them all the time. I LOOOOOVE Kinsey Millhone! The next book is supposed to be released this fall, I believe.

      Delete
  19. What great things to put inside your Significance Box! I love that you have so many wonderful memories of your great aunts. I recently became one myself, and can only hope that years and years from now my great nieces will remember me as fondly as you remember yours. :) I also love Nipper - and several of the artists who signed him. All of your significant items are fabulous. Love that oak secretary as well!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My great aunts were like grandparents to me. Their brother was my grandfather, and he died when I was 3 weeks old. My grandmother died when I was 7. Plus, my mom lived with them from the time she was about 8 until she got married, because her parents moved to the family farm and she and her brother didn't want to live there and go to a one-room country school. It was a very special relationship.
      I love my Nipper! He wears a Santa hat at Christmas :)

      Delete
  20. OK, first, do you still have relatives in eastern PA??? Because if you do, the next time you visit you HAVE to come visit us!!!
    Magnets on the fridge...we do the same and for the same reason. Most of them are from places we've been together, things we've done.
    I love this post- so much history and so many memories. I think I love the glasses most.
    I think somebody challenged me to do this ten things thing...and I dropped the ball. Maybe I'll start thinking about that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If I still had relatives in eastern PA, you better believe you and I would be getting together! They moved to Tulsa about 10 years ago.
      One of my magnets is from the Lackawanna Coal Mine in Scranton.
      The glasses part of this post made Emma cry.
      DO THIS. It really is fun. I could do several follow ups.

      Delete