Sunday, November 12, 2006

Furniture

Furniture has a way of sticking around long after its owners. Not that it is a bad thing, but as the generations go by, the amount of furniture to be passed along to the next generation multiplies. Some items must be given up or wear out, others just keep on going.

I thought it might be fun to trace what has happened to a few pieces of furniture from my childhood. You know…. where are they now?

My grandmother’s rocking chair: I honestly don’t know where she got it or when, but my mother told me that they had it when she was a small child. On one of the arms there is a small round hole that my mother apparently whittled out. My doubt my grandmother was not pleased. This rocker had a stuffed seat and padding on the T-shaped back. From what my mother told me, the rocker had not originally had a padded back, but that the wood cracked and she decided to upholster the back to match the seat. The night my grandmother died, in 1957, she sat in the rocker awaiting the ambulance’s arrival. She was having a massive heart attack. I can still see her sitting in the rocker in her nightgown, her face dripping with perspiration. I think in those days, the rocker was covered in blue fabric. The next year, we moved to a new house and my mother “re-did” the rocker to match the new house. She replaced the fabric with a rose velvet. For thirty-two years the rocker sat in the living room of my parents’ home. When my mother died, I inherited the rocker. I found a place for it in my living room. Then, when we built our new house in 1992, I saw that it had a prominent place in the living room. It is still covered with my mother’s pink velvet fabric. The chair is big and comfortable, and very special. I don’t know what wood it is made of…maybe pine, but it is stained mahogany.

My grandfather’s chifferobe: My grandfather was born in 1878 and I have been told that he received the chifferobe as a young man around the turn of the century. I don’t know for sure, but was told that it was made in England and shipped on the Mississippi to his home in Memphis. I suppose he must have used it between 1900 and 1940, but from its condition in the late ‘40s it was not used gently. The chifferobe used to sit on the back porch. The back porch was really an enclosed room off the kitchen. It has twenty-eight windows, the freezer, the washing machine, the dryer, a green cabinet for garden supplies, and the chifferobe. We kept paint, tools, the DDT dispenser, etc. in the chifferobe. Some of the drawers were missing hardware, so we would stick a screwdriver in the hole to pull out the drawer. The bottom board was rotted, like it had been flooded. When we moved in 1957, my grandfather and I begged for the chifferobe to come along. It found a home in the basement garage. One summer day, at about age 17, I decided it needed to be refinished. It always upset me to see such a beautifully carved piece in such terrible shape. It was go grand – even put together with pegs. So I refinished one drawer (stripped), the bottom one. It looked great, but life intervened and soon I was off to college. My mother saw its potential and took on the task of refinishing the piece. After months of painstaking work, a replacement bottom board (which apparently was some sort of special wood that had been blessed for a synagogue project – but matched perfectly and was available), and new hardware, the chifferobe made its way to the family room of my parents’ home. And there is staying, always with a silk fern on top, for another twenty-five years. My parents used it for storing all sorts of miscellaneous household items. My father closed the house in about 1990 when he moved to an assisted living apartment. The chifferobe came home with me. It found a home in our family room. When we built our new home, we designed it with the chifferobe in mind. It stands proudly on the entrance foyer wall. Behind the small mirrored door, we keep all of our emergency supplies – lanterns, tiny TV, radio,flashlights, etc. We keep keys, candles, wrapping paper, batteries, lightbulbs, vacuum cleaner bags, cameras and more in the chifferobe. I just put a new silk fern on top of it. It is still my favorite piece of furniture in the house.

My grandmother’s library table: My grandmother grew up in rural Clay County, Alabama. From what I have read about her Hatchett Creek Community, every respectable family had a library table prominently placed in the living room. Books were scarce and the library table was a place to display them. Library tables were high enough so that you could stand and look at a book on the surface of the table. When I was little, the library table was in the attic room my grandfather used as an office. Sometime in the mid-‘50s my mother decided to cut the table down (two large pedestal legs) and use it as a coffee table. She hired a man to do the job. He removed the veneer from the top, but on the bottom he left it in place and tacked it down. Although the table looked good, my mother was NOT happy with him for tacking down the veneer. Still, the table (tacked veneer and all) came to be my mother’s living coffee table. When my father closed down the house, it came to me. Like much of the furniture that I inherited, the table was coated with a yellow film (my parents smoked). In the rental moving van on the way up from Alabama, the heat melted the fuzzy fabric of the pads into the coating on the table. It took me many hours to remove all the fuzz and the yellow film, but today the table looks fine. It is still my coffee table in the family room. My mother used to keep the center drawer filled with playing cards. I never really have enjoyed playing cards, but I keep playing cards in that center drawer. You never know…maybe someday I will take up bridge.

My house is filled with items with this kind of history. I love them all.

No comments: