The Forgotten Treasures of People who Died Intestate

The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me. I am domestic.

Before my wife moved in, things were pretty sweet. I had a plastic Home Depot folding table in the kitchen, surrounded by molded chairs that ran around $12 each. I had my mother’s terrible bedroom furniture, plus an $80 Chinese headboard from Amazon. I had two workbenches plus a lot of tools in the former dining room, along with an ammo press and a great deal of ammunition and components.

Now I have a vintage rocking chair and an oak kitchen table, and I am buying homey junk that will irreversibly remove the aroma of testosterone from my home. I spend my days on the web and in furniture stores, looking for the kind of things I would already have, had my relatives not looted my dad’s home and my grandparents’ homes.

Trivets. I have trivets on the way. My mother had cast iron trivets that probably came from her grandmother’s home. They vanished into the vortex known as my sister, never to be seen again, along with her display cabinets, my great-great-grandfather’s violin, art from my grandparents’ house, a lot of books she never read but did display, and, well, many things I no longer remember because I have not seen them in so long.

I remembered what my mom’s trivets looked like, and I knew a little bit about cast iron from buying skillets, so I found myself a couple of replacements made by the Griswold company. Griswold is my favorite cast iron manufacturer. My mom probably had some kind of knockoffs. Her #6 skillet, which I have, has no brand stamped into it. I have large-logo Griswolds and matching cornstick pans.

I also got a trivet just for the wall. While I was shopping, I remembered a little plaque my mother’s mother kept in her kitchen. It had a prayer on it, written by a lady named Klara Munkres. I could not find the exact plaque, but I did find a trivet with a tile on it inscribed with the prayer. A nice reminder of my grandmother, from whom I inherited virtually no objects.

We have kitchen wall space we need to fill, so I picked up some old copper Jell-O molds in the shape of various creatures. I don’t know if anyone has ever made gelatin or anything else in molds like this, but they are popular as wall art.

We saw a grandfather clock in a consignment store, very like the one in my grandmother’s living room. My aunt got that one. She deserved it. When my grandparents died, the family did her about like they did me.

Looking at the clock, I thought it might be nice to have it. I went home and Googled it. They wanted $395, but new ones sell for 10 times that. I thought I had the bargain of the century, and then I learned grandfather clocks have no resale value. If we decide we want one, we can get one better than the one my grandmother had for $150 or less. Many people put ads up asking strangers to haul them off for nothing.

Never buy a new grandfather clock. I’m not sure why people keep doing it.

My grandparents had a weather station. This is a carved wooden board with a thermometer, a barometer, and a humidity gauge on it. They were popular before the world turned into a giant computer. I plan to get one. They’re neat.

I’m getting stuff considerably nicer than the things my relations got. My grandparents had some nice stuff, and they also had some things aimed at the undiscerning. If I had inherited them, I would have to say, “It’s not great, but it belonged to my grandparents.” As things are, I say, “It may not have belonged to my grandparents, but when my kids inherit it, they won’t have to say, ‘It’s not great, but…'”

My belief is that old used furniture is the way to go. We just paid about $750 for an oak kitchen table and chairs, and the cost for Vietnamese junk literally made from rubber trees and soaked with pesticide is around $1600. The rocker we got is either oak or ash, and it was made by an American company called Bent Brothers. A Chinese rocker from Cracker Barrel costs $140, and we paid $65. I got a product called Restor-A-Finish to touch up the worn bits, and now the chair looks magnificent.

I draw the line at old cushions. When you buy a cushion that’s 70 years old, you have no idea how much dried pee is inside it. I won’t buy anything upholstered unless I think I can get it redone economically.

One thing that’s hard to get: bookshelves. I finally realized why there were so few. It’s because most Americans do not read books. TV cabinets…no problem. They’re everywhere. During the last century, many people spent a thousand or more dollars on a TV cabinet with a TV hole about 30″ wide, thinking no one would ever need anything bigger. Now these cabinets clutter Craigslist and Goodwill stores. They’re useless curiosities. Like film cameras and Biden ’24 hats.

On a whim, I decided to look for art prints by a woman named Nellie Meadows, the pride of Clay City, Kentucky. She’s dead, so I can be honest. She was a pretty bad artist. Appalachia is known for a near-total lack of artistic talent, however, so her work attained some popularity in Eastern Kentucky.

I don’t want to move back to Eastern Kentucky, and I distance myself from the worst parts of the backward culture, but it would be nice to have some decor touches that remind me of home, so I have looked around for Nellie Meadows prints. Turns out they are sold online occasionally, for princely sums occasionally bumping up against the three-figure mark. If I can find one of the ones my grandparents had, I’ll pick it up.

There was also a local artist named Al Cornett. Much better than Nellie Meadows but not likely to make anyone forget Thomas Eakins. I remember one of his paintings, so I may snap up a print if it becomes available.

He may still be alive. Hope he never sees my blog.

I recall throwing out some mold-covered prints from the house my sister wrecked, but I can’t recall whether they were by Nellie Meadows or Al Cornett.

Nellie was part of the Meadows family that built the Meadows Golf Course in Clay City, Kentucky. The guy that ran the place was named Forest, and he had a swing about like Charles Barkley’s. He made a couple of short fakes and then hit the ball. It was something to see.

I may buy a butter churn to put on the hearth, and I have a couple of my grandmother’s kerosene lamps for the mantel.

We found a neat old rolltop secretary desk to put in a dead space by the kitchen, but while we were thinking it over, they jacked the price from $125 to $395. I was planning to offer $80, and I thought that was too much. My grandmother had a secretary desk with a hinged lid outside her kitchen. A good place to throw mail and later forget about it.

I’m considering a braided wool rug for the living room. Another idea from my grandmother, who had astonishingly good taste for a woman born in 1910 in a place called Holly Creek. I think it was Holly Creek. Not sure. Somehow my mother’s taste was not nearly as good.

Three of the four girls had questionable taste. I would say the youngest led the pack.

Today we are planning to go to the local flea market, if my wife ever gets out of the shower. It occurred to me that while the flea market is nearly useless for buying things one might actually use, it’s good for the kind of junk you might see on the ceiling and walls at Cracker Barrel. Maybe we can find some old kitchen stuff.

Can I work all this Appalachian stuff in and still get a reclining couch? Don’t know yet, but I think it would be better to have clashing decor than a couch that won’t recline.

I better go in there and make sure she’s awake.