I have a thing for old things, I do! I love going to barn auctions, flea markets and antique shops in small towns. My house is not filled with ‘antiques’ but, it is filled with furniture, pictures, quilts and dishes from two generations back, from both my husband’s and my family. I really have a thing for ‘family things,’ I can’t get rid of them.
When first married I couldn’t afford big antique items, like furniture or china so I was the girl that family members gifted their old furniture and china to, and now 40 plus years later I have a house full, ( many items are now considered true antiques). Patience was on my side. I love having the connection with our great grandparents, grandparents and parents through their furniture and household items. Thinking about how they used and made a home with these chairs, couches and tables, the family dinners that were served with the china and silver ware sets, that now serve my family. It all makes family get togethers special!
Since I am no longer a collector of household items, I have come to a new interest of old buildings, mostly buildings that are no longer in use, but have not been torn down. Buildings that have stood the test time of usefulness, weather and the prairie. I drive country roads, many dirt roads, to take pictures of old buildings. Who lived in these old buildings and who went to the out buildings to milk the cow and gather the eggs in the predawn hours?
I believe that my desire for the connection to the past is in my very soul and that my love for doing things,( quilting, knitting, spinning, canning, etc.) is so much a part of my life. I don’t live in the past, but I do need to pull the past with me in order to live in the ‘now.’
And, who doesn’t want to be remembered when gone by someone in the present? So, I wonder and think of these people of the past and what their lives were like.
