found in an attic

[gurdonark]

I'm always intrigued by the notion of an attic full of things. My grandmother and grandfather had one of those cinematic attics, which had memorabilia from the past--books my grandfather read in high school, newspaper articles about family things, and various of the clothing items and such that don't get thrown out. This attic, though, was in an old home they moved from when I was a young teen, and I don't think that the attic in the home they moved to had any such ancient contrivance. I've been reading this morning about all the various things that people have found in an attic. One attic in California contained the original manuscript of the first half of Mark Twain's novel "Huckleberry Finn". An attic in Sweden held a thousand year old Viking sword, apparently dug up a generation or two ago, placed in an attic and forgotten.
An attic in the UK contained Queen Victoria's letters to the gamekeeper of whom she grew quite fond after the death of her husband (which perhaps should serve as a reminder about committing to paper/LJ things one does not wish uncovered in later generations). People have auctioned things at Sotheby's they found in an attic, but I am pretty sure my aunt's high school yearbook would not have made me rich.

I must admit that I have a bit of longing to sort through attics of old material. I like those little county historical museums which are nothing more than a collection of the attics of roughly ten people. I love the look of an old-time attic space--the kind in which actual walking areas are available for storage and mobility, unlike, say, our current attic in which only limited storage is possible because most of it is just insulation, not walkway.

I think the attraction for me of an attic is that connection to things passed. I wonder sometimes what earlier generations of my family thought. I'm fortunate, in that on my mother's side of the family,somebody wrote a rather detailed geneaology, and on my father's side of the family, there is a rich oral and written history of things family members said and did.

One bit of oral history always speaks to me. A number of my relatives fought in the American Civil War, in the 1860s. Most of them fought on the losing Confederate side, while a few fought on the Union side. One great-great-type relative participated in many of the bloody Tennessee campaign battles, horrendous affairs in which he obtained wounds. He told the story of being in a battle in which a line of Union troops was arrayed against a line of Confederate troops. Just before the battle began, a large rabbit ran between the lines. Both sides watched the rabbit head past the lines, retreating to safety. Finally, one of the soldiers shouted out "But for my honour, I'd run, too!", and both sides broke down in laughter. My uncle's Civil War pension records show he took three wounds at Shiloh. I wish everyone's honour had made it possible for that war to be avoided.

Another of my great-great-type relatives wrote his life story for his descendants to read. Like most of my relatives, he alternated between farming and working for the railroad, achieving no greatimportance in either field. His autobiography runs no more than two pages or so. It's a good general guide to what he did, but it does not really tell me what he felt, and how things seemed to him. I always marvel at people who lived one hundred years ago--no anti-biotics, life expectancies significantly shorter, no technology, outmoded social prejudices and more challenges in many ways. Yet many tend to think of those past times as uniformly charming and desirable. I am always intrigued by folks who argue for "good old days" during which a national economic emergency put people out of their homes, hungry, or for a time when "old time religion" tolerated lynchings of people in public exhibitions as a spectator sport. But the lure of the past is nonetheless unmistakable. I like my past in trunk-sized portions, in atticss in old homes, where everything can seem charming, outdated and utterly desirable.

Comments

[platofish.livejournal.com]

....one of the saddest things about moving around so much is not having an accumulation of 'stuff', gathered over the years. The longest I've ever lived in the same place is 3 years (my current place), otherwise, a year or less is typical.

One day, I'm sure i'll settle for good (what ever that means).

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I know just what you mean. We're really hoping we'll spend decades in our current home, and not merely a few years. We do have a garage full of boxes, which move with us, but we like to think we're not old enough for them to be vintage.

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

we never had an attic and did have furniture and artwork and of course scads of books that were the family treasures but no real connections with extended family

perhaps that's my fascination with attics and things kept, all and everything kept

my mother threw me out at 17 along with everything i'd kept

she also gave away all our toys and most of our books

she does not have an attachment to the past at all

when my father began helping King Burke, the elderly next door neighbor who eventually died and his house was opened to the world in that massive estate sale last year, clean out the enormous and jammed full of treasures basement i begged him to let me know when they would address the attic

supposedly there were 4 generations of the belongings and such up there

King died before that ever happened and it was only on the third day of the estate sale that my friend Pomegranate and i ventured up there

thrashed and trashed, there were still boxes of personal mementos and gradeschool and college accomplishments, photos, pictures and paintings

i am attracted to stories and tales of people's lives so these old and often un-treasured are laden with soul and sentiment

what was wasn't picked up at the estate sale was launched from on high into the most enormous portable dumpster i ever saw

not that attic and it's sheltered stories are being prepared to be the Historical Society's Showcase Home this coming April....everything it was gutted and some sheeshee designer will attempt to make a dramatic impression on other designers and their adoring crowds

i've got a cardboard box of the Burke family ...ashes to ashes, paper to paper turned into art

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

It's hard to imagine you being "hoisted out" at 17--what an odd thing that must have been. I share with you this fascination with people's stories and personal histories, which, to me, the attic space symbolizes. We live in such a disposable culture, when we no longer really revere things unless they are collectibles, while the old attics were for things kept for the sheer sake of keeping them. I have only a glancing memory of my grandparents' attic--a visit or two, a time I was loaned a Jack London novel of my grandfather's, but the mystery of that attic space if firmly in my mind, as if the earthy, mossy smell of the little wooden garage behind their house, which was used for general storage rather than auto storage.

[mesawyou.livejournal.com]

That's so sad.

Re:

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

yes

it still feels that way as i look out my window and see the yard stripped clear and the trees cut down and any remnants of a century worth of family history evaporate

[uscwriter.livejournal.com]

Loved this post Robert!... I started my latest paper journal about a month ago, and I am keeping all those little tidbits of trivia I tear out of magazines and newspapers, stuff I stick in my daytimer for whatever reason. I wanted to do it in a scrapbook format, but it seemed so much more pleasing to me in the journal form, where I could write why I kept the item and what I think about it. So far, I have a pocket page with stuff from "Lord of the Rings," the first accounts online I could find about the shuttle,articles about the possible war, a page torn from a catalog detailing a book I want to give the mother in law as a gift. There's no rhyme or reason to it- it just is.

That is the main reason I keep a paper journal- I think it would be infinitely interesting to touch the pages someone else had written on and put together.

Several years ago, my mema (grandmother) brought me a flour sack full of stuff she had saved from my great-grandfather's house. She had gone through it already, looking at everything. But she brought all the treasures to me. There were about 30 years worth of receipts from where my great-great grandfather had paid taxes, receipts for items he had purchased, the funeral books for the great great grandfather and grandmother. The best piece, tucked into an envelope, was the original land grant, dated 1792, for the family land, signed by the governor of South Carolina. If she hadn't grabbed the bag, all of that memorabilia would have been lost.

Everything's worth something to someone. You just have to figure out who's going to keep it.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Although in its more twee forms I am not a devotee, this modern scrapbooking movement is overall a very grand thing. I think that families must serve as normative guides to what is happening all about us--what mattered, what didn't and why? I no longer believe that we must rely on some "person in NY", "person at Harvard", "person in LA" or "person in Washington" to derive our culture and what it all means, nor must we reject the effort to capture and analyze the moment. I think instead we set up our own amateur workshops--this mattered to me, and here's why, that we pass on to a younger time, so they'l understand us. I believe it was done for us, in a hundred ways and a thousand stories, and we must do for those who come after us.

cinematic attics

[sortofkindof.livejournal.com]

wonderful, wonderful!

I have an especial interest in attics because 1) my grandmother had a massive attic that was absolutely forbidden to enter. And then after her death the majority of its contents were disposed of.
2) my immediate family/myself have never had our own attic space. (only crawl spaces: ick)

Re: cinematic attics

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for suggesting such an evocative post idea. I have always had a fascination with attics. I think that part of the allure is the "forbidden mysteries" and "quick glances" nature of the attic storage, a place to which one could not go because all was precious, but where, as with your family, the precious gems were discarded when the owners pass away.

To adopt the metaphor, I worry that we all treat traditions as "crawl space", and fail to pass down what was "real", leaving it to the media culture to fabricate traditions we "should" experience, instead of forming more meaningful ones. Although I love Christmas, for example, I suspect that Christmas is a media-driven inauthentic thing for lots of people, who should instead be sharing other things about family bonding and finding oneself.

But thanks for the idea. This sort of great idea is why I solicit the post topics.

[serendipoz.livejournal.com]

When my grandfather died, we (the family that was there) rummaged in thier attic for keepsakes. I think I have a signature from my grandmother to my grandfather (I love you.) I did have a necklace and a jewlery chest - but in the one robbery of my house those were taken. I miss them for the memories more than the items.

I've been going through trunks in my parents house each time I visit. My father was an accumulator. I have most of 11 years of Saturday evening post (from 1946 to 1957) which survived on the floor of their storage area. But I'm giving them away or distributing them. How can I cope with more paper? I have so much.

I love looking at the photos, though - and hearing the stories.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Ah, if I had those saturday evening posts, I'd comb through for individual pages with evocative, and frame them as kind of emblems of a time long past. I know what you mean about so much paper--so much everything, and yet so little permanent! But having an "I love you" signature on a grandparents' letter to a grandparent--that's priceless.

Re:

[serendipoz.livejournal.com]

Hummm, ... maybe I should take my current stack of Saturday Evening Posts and turn them into wall hangings. Maybe I could make a profit? Would you really want to hang an advertizement from 1950 on your wall?

I have a tendancy to recyle *stuff* rather than paper. The idea of trashing books is not a happy one.

[laruth.livejournal.com]

I wish we had an attic, as I have never been in one before. A lot of houses around here seem to have insulation in what may pass as the attic. There doesn't seem to be enough room to store things!

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Older houses mostly have big attics here. Also, in other parts of our country, people have huge basements, but we don't have them here, either.

[laruth.livejournal.com]

We don't have basements here. Someone explained that it may have to do with how cold it gets in winter, as the heating facilities are stored in the basement?

[sominfun.livejournal.com]

This post reminds me of an old family story. My step-grandfather who was unlike the traditional stereotype of evil step-family members, passed away before my grandmother. He was kind, loving, generous and thoughtful. After living through the depression my grandmother saved everything. I remember coffee cans full of buttons and safety pins stacked on top of her refrigerator. Navigating through certain rarely used rooms was difficult at best. Grandmother never went through Grandpa's things. She left them just as they were. When she passed a few years later the family began to go through everything. My mother found a sealed letter Grandpa had written to my grandmother in the case of his death, stating how much he loved her and how happy she had made his life. Sadly Grandma never knew of his letter in this world.

Your post resurfaced that bittersweet memory. Thanks. :)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

My goodness! What a touching, and yes, bittersweet, story.