The pics on the scroll are of the Stations of the Cross
The items pictured above are probably well over 100 years old. Additionally, chances are pretty good at least one or two of them were brought over from Europe
by my mother’s paternal grandparents in the late 1800’s, and may very well be
among the oldest family heirlooms that are still around and in the possession
of descendants of Stanley and Kathryn Raykowicz…or perhaps even prior generations(?).
FYI- I definitely have the trunk they used to bring their belongings to America.
Believe it or not, these items were slated for the landfill
when my great-aunt Sophie’s property on S. Meade Street was being cleaned out some
~23 years ago. I was 35 at the time, so this is not a somewhat vague childhood memory
for me.
My Mom asked me to go along with her to her Aunt Soph's home ( and the original family homestead of her father when he was a child ) to help her carry anything back
that she was allowed to take. What I specifically recall is that my mother’s
cousins and other relatives - none of whom I really knew as they lived outside
of the area – were sitting in the parlor or middle room very carefully going
through envelopes, books, papers, etc.
That
scene always stuck with me.
They almost didn’t bother to look up to acknowledge
who they were talking to. There were random piles of “stuff” in various rooms
and the basement that they said we could look through…as long as we brought
them back to a young man ( ~my age ) for final approval before taking them
away. In addition to the items shown above, I grabbed several very old (circa
1860’s) mason jars, a wooden tub ( half barrel ) that I was told the men of the
family would take quick standing baths in when they came home from working in
the mines, and a few other odds and ends with low monetary worth but
significant sentimental value.
FYI- I also have the picture of The Last Supper that hung on the kitchen wall of my grandparent's home. Several generations of our family said grace and ate meals in their presence. To me, that's somewhere between pretty cool and priceless.
Anyway, years later, I was told that one of the reasons there was
probably such obvious focus on going through papers, envelopes and the like was
that a significant amount of
cash had been found stashed throughout the entire house; hidden in coat pockets, underneath or tucked
within folded items in clothes drawers, inside jars in the food pantry, under (yes)
mattresses, etc. Yet, I’m sure – only because I have a few of them - an
incredible number of family “heirlooms” that were deemed meaningless/worthless
by these folks were trucked away by the junkman to the nearest landfill. I was also
told, separately, that the Purple Heart and Military funeral burial flag
pictured at the top of this blog were also in one of the “to be tossed” piles.
If true, that is beyond sad.
To all who visit...there’s certainly more to follow in the weeks and
months ahead.
Stay tuned.
