The Making of an Heirloom

Reader Contribution by Cindy Murphy
Published on September 29, 2008
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The far-reaching effects of Hurricane Ike were felt even in West Michigan; it came in the form of rain….lots of rain. The deluge lasted three days, without letting up, and by the time the last raindrop fell, we received 10 to 12 inches here … eight inches of it ending up in our basement.

Eight inches equals a lot of soggy stuff; nearly everything in the basement was stored in cardboard boxes. When the rain stopped, our garage and driveway looked like a soggy free-for-all trashy rummage sale with everything from the basement thrown in heaps. All those packed cardboard boxes of clothes, Halloween decorations, Christmas ornaments, family photos, financial records, and whatever else was down there had to be picked through to see what could be salvaged. What a mess!

Sifting through a disintegrating box of sopping wet linens, I found an old tablecloth – a green, cotton square with a printed border of little hearts, Dutch girls and flowers. I smiled remembering the last time it was used.

When my oldest daughter, Shelby, was in third grade, she had to bring an old family heirloom to class and give an oral report about its history, using the heirloom to illustrate how people lived and thought in days past. This heirloom could not be a picture. Shoot – nearly all we had were pictures … or trinkets that mean a lot to one member of the family or another, but nothing that would be considered an heirloom with a history behind it. Mom’s house is packed with such things, but she lives hundreds of miles away – too far to drop in and grab something off one of her packed-to-overflowing shelves. My daughter and I searched our house. In a box in the basement, we found a tablecloth that I had somehow acquired from Mom. I called her to explain my daughter’s homework assignment predicament, and find out if there was a story attached to the tablecloth. It looked kind of Pennsylvania Dutch to me, and because Dad grew up in rural Pennsylvania, I thought perhaps it was from his childhood home.

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