Treasures from my grandmother’s house

So, I’ve been to the house and took out a few things that I liked. Some of it very tacky. Stuff I wouldn’t buy myself, but since I know that one of my grandparents owned it, it’s making it cool by association! It’s a lot more meaningful to me than I thought. It’s not that much of a burden anymore. It rather became fun. And I still discover new things about my grandparents. They must have been lots of fun to be around. And I still get messages from my grandmother 😉 I’ve taken home a cute little vase and inside I found the letter: “This vase is not waterproof” to warn future owners. It cracked me up. So thoughtful!

To the three readers who read my post about the secretary 🙂 This is the one:

In my imagination, the secretary was in much better shape. And as it turns out, there is no built-in ceramic picture. I don’t know where that came from. Maybe it was just a picture standing there? I don’t know. It’s just weird. I’m actually even more glad now that my cousin took it, since future people who would rent the house would have definitely thrown it out. And I would have been overwhelmed with the work of restoring it. Instead, I took lots of pictures! (As I realized just now, blurry ones, but you get an impression…I hope) An item I took out of the secretary: A stapler that’s very beautiful to look at. And fully functional! Just saw a similar one in a store for 65€. Can you believe that?!

This kitchen scale is very dirty, but very cool! I won’t use it, I think. I display it in my bookshelf right now.

This is something I never would have known. This “box” was standing in my grandmother’s bedroom where I also spent some nights as a child.

But I never knew what it was, let alone noticed it.

It’s a sewing machine 🙂 Very clever!

We found this love letter from 1939 that my grandfather wrote to my grandmother. It is beyond romantic and I never knew this side of him. As I understand it, he was a very quiet man, somehow artsy and he supposedly never talked about his feelings. My mom has inherited this quality. She probably never heard one “I love you” from him, but he certainly showed his affection in other ways much more meaningful. She oftentimes tells me this wonderful story of the two of them going to church. Every Sunday after church, my grandfather treated my mom to a pair of sausages at the local inn. He only drank a glass of cheap wine or something, since money was scarce. He must have been hungry himself, after all, they had to go by foot for about half an hour or something. But he let her gain strength, since the journey home was much more arduous as they lived on a mountain. I think that’s why my mom is so persistent in going to church every Sunday her whole life. It makes me beyond sad that he died so early so that I didn’t know him. Not for me, but for my mom. She always wanted us to know what a person he was, but I, being an ignorant child, didn’t sense the scope of her sadness. But through the process of clearing out the house, I hope my mom knows that I care now. You see, I also inherited the thing to communicate feelings through actions rather than through words 😉 Moving on 🙂

That china was standing somewhere in the house for decades and nobody paid attention. It was too precious to use. Somehow, my mom doesn’t even know where it’s from but she insisted on me taking it and almost yelled at me when I said that I don’t care much for it. I don’t even drink coffee. But since she didn’t want one of my cousins to take it, it just changed location and is now standing in my old room at my mom’s house. Makes sense 😉

Surprisingly enough, one of my cousins asked me for exactly that porcelain when the family had its last getting together in the house. That was very strange and my mom was delighted and gave me the “I told you so!” face for having had the foresight to force me to take it. Lastly, that button box is just too cute and I’m sure my grandfather made it himself.

I’ll leave you with some pictures of the wonderful nature in August 🙂