Recently one of my husband’s Facebook friends posted a picture of a small cedar hope chest that was given to her when she graduated from high school in the ’60s. They mentioned that all the girls who graduated from Kelso, RA Long or Mark Morris high school were given a pint-size wooden box as a gift from Cy Goldberg, who owned a furniture store in the Cowlitz County area.
As far as I can tell that’s the same Cy Goldberg who operated a furniture store here in Aberdeen beginning in the 1930s or ’40s.
I don’t know if mini cedar chests were handed out to Grays Harbor graduates but I can tell you that the one I received is still sitting on my dresser (see attached photo).
That got me to thinking about what other old “stuff” we have in our Central Park home, (besides my husband Mike and me, of course).
From Mike’s family we have a couple of amazing pieces of art including a water color of an Arab sheik and a cork carving of a fishing village, the full-sized cedar chest his mother received as a wedding gift in the 1930s, a large assortment of very delicate Fostoria crystalware (martini, wine and water glasses), a set of Blue Willow Occupied Japan sectioned plates, and a copy of “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gigran, a distant cousin of his mom.
There’s quite a few pieces of furniture we inherited from my folks: three maple end tables, a maple dining room table and six chairs, a china cabinet, a foot rest with an embroidered cushion on top, the two dressers from my parents’ bedroom, a full set of silverware etched with the letter “G” and a bunch of my mom’s costume jewelry. Oh, and I almost forgot the sets of embroidered pillowcases my mom was always working on in the evenings. The embroidery work is still beautiful but the once white cases are getting a little dingy.
Hanging in our dining room is a 15 by 32-inch Craft Master paint-by-number picture of The Lord’s Supper that I finished while in high school. Still quite impressive, if I do say so myself.
Since we were high school sweethearts at Kelso High School we have dual copies of our high school annuals, and a couple of photo albums with very faded pictures from our wedding in January 1971 and lots of photos of Tara who was born in December 1972. (Not so many photos of her younger brother Tyler, born 1978 and sister Tami, born 1980).
Mike still has the hair brush he used in high school. It’s missing a lot of its bristles (and similarly he’s missing a lot of hair that he had back then) but I’m guessing it’s something he holds on to for nostalgia.
In a kitchen cupboard we have an an old-fashioned glass that Mike still uses for his evening scotch-on-the-rocks drink. I think the glass was “acquired” when he worked as a dishwasher at the Kelso Elks in 1964. And there’s also the yellow Tupperware colander and set of measuring cups I think we got as wedding presents in 1971.
In the office we have my mother-in-law’s Bible as well as one Mike was given by his best friend’s mom when he was heading to Vietnam in 1969.
As far as old jewelry, I have the wedding ring that Mike’s asked his best friend to create for me, the gold chain and small gold cross that Mike gave me before we were married and the POW bracelet I’ve been wearing since 1970 that honors a military member who never came home from Vietnam.
Heaven only knows what will happen to all this stuff when it’s time for us to move into a smaller place or when we’re both in what our good friend calls “permanent, low-cost, underground housing,” but for now I love living with all these reminders of times gone by — stuff from our parent’s homes, the years at Kelso High School and all the time Mike and I have been together.
Karen Barkstrom is the editorial assistant for The Daily World. She can be reached at 360-537-3925 or karen.barkstrom@thedailyworld.com.
