Some Of My Things

What is the history of the physical things you have inherited? Will your children know where they came from or what they mean to you? 

These are questions I answered in an online family history class and like a flash of light I knew I really should document some of my things.

I found myself alone upstairs in my  Aunt Hunni’s house one summer day when I was eight years old. Hunni, Johanna Betterman Schulz, was the middle sister of three daughters, my mother being the youngest. I visited there often and always stayed a week or more during summer vacation. She and Onkel Albert owned a farm on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, Utah. The farmhouse was large with a few out-buildings on the acreage. The upstairs in the farmhouse was special because my grandmother lived there.  

 When I reached the top of the stairs my grandmother’s room was visible. As I stepped inside the light from the east window cast a glow on her chest of drawers. The wood was polished and in this light had a rosy glow. There were four large drawers and one shallow drawer on the very top. That drawer held a mystical, secretive aura. Oma, grandmother in German, didn’t allow me to explore her room. I could come in and sit on her couch but I was never allowed to peer into her closets or drawers.

I knew from previous peeking that this top drawer held her jewelry and combs which she wore in her long hair. Tortoise shell hair combs tucked into her gray hair were so interesting to me. Several times I saw her hair down as she sat before her dressing table in just a slip. I watched as she wound her hair around and around and secured the pins and combs carefully into her bun. Then she would push her jeweled combs into the sides of her head. It would take only minutes but I watched it carefully each time, always surprised by the process.

                                                                                                      

 I picked up her combs and smelled them. They had a oily, musty smell much like my Oma’s scent. At first the scent repelled me because it was too real. Oma seemed right by my side. But then I tried the combs in my own hair. They just slipped out. How did she anchor them so tight?

    Oma died in 1965 when I was twelve years old. The chest of drawers stayed in Aunt Hunni’s house until 1983 when I moved to Seattle. Tante Hunni asked if I would like to have this piece of furniture that so captured my imagination. Yes, I really did want this chest which held so many memories of my grandmother. 

In my own home it moved from the bedroom of my sons to the room of my daughters. It was filled with underwear, socks, shirts, hats, perfume, necklaces, and letters. It seemed to fit every occasion and every child. I had it in my own bedroom for a few years until I relinquished it back to a child who needed more room for their clothing. I think what made it so versatile and sturdy was its simple design, beautiful wood, and excellent craftsmanship. Uncle Albert, a farmer, handy with all tools, made it himself in the later forties when Oma came to live with them after emigrating from Germany in 1949.  

At seventy years old she came alone on a ship with two canes, results of a broken hip which didn’t mend correctly, and made the journey across the United States to Utah. She left West Germany after living as a refuge from Silesia. World War II resulted in Silesia becoming a Polish state and most Germans left to resettle in the West. She came to live with Tante Hunni and Onkle Albert in America because her other daughters were married, trying to re-establish themselves in different places in West Germany. Her only son was in East Germany and he was then behind the Iron Curtain.

Just like this chest of drawers my Oma was simple, made resilient and strong by years of war and trouble, and finely finished with faith and tenacity.

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