My parents died recently and when I was clearing out their apartment I found mum had written notes and put them inside various family pieces. They were stories of when/where the items were purchased and the story behind each one. Quite a few purchased by my great grandfather. I’m now the keeper of memories which can feel overwhelming. Like your mug the items aren’t worth a great deal in the monetary sense but they bear the fingerprints of my family and as such are full of value.
My paternal grandmother kept old family death notices in her china. Rather macabre, but I later learnt it was the death notice of the person who had owned an item
I find these glimpses so fascinating. When I was a student I bought a battered second hand copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and tucked inside was the yellowing receipt for it, from a New York bookstore. I wonder what journey that book had to fetch up in a second hand shop in Sheringham, Norfolk.
If only they could speak...I have many antique pieces of furniture and items of pottery. I would dearly love to know their histories ie when they were made, who first bought them and all the hands they have passed through before my ownership.
