Family Heirlooms come in many forms - from the more traditional jewellery and china to more unusual items. A few years ago I posted about my experience of my sister and I
cleaning out the family home after the deaths of our parents - our
father in 2013 and mother in 2015 - and the importance of knowing the
stories behind the many treasures tucked away in cupboards and drawers,
or out in the shed.
Cleaning out the house, we came across
treasures in every corner. A hand tinted photo of my mother as a child,
a box of slides and negatives from early in our parents' marriage, a
small garnet brooch that belonged to my great grandmother, a bronze
alligator nutcracker made by my grandfather, and so much more.
Then
there is my heirloom garden gnome. Most heirlooms are small,
portable and easy to take with you when
you move. Some, like my gnome, are not. He is about 50 cm tall, and
my family purchased two of them for my father's 50th birthday, back in
January 1976. When we sold the family home my sister and I decided we
wanted to keep one gnome each. At the time we first brought them,
there was a rash of gnome-napping happening where we lived, with gnomes
disappearing from gardens, never to be seen again. So my father filled
the concrete
shells with more concrete, then installed them on concrete plinths
about 30 cm in diameter and 10 cm thick, out in our front yard. They
weigh a ton, and needless to say, they have never been successfully
'gnome-napped'.
Then, there is the heirloom hare's foot fern. The original hares-foot belonged to my grandmother. Before she
passed away, my mother took a cutting from her plant, brought it home
and potted it. It thrived in our greenhouse and by the time my parents
passed away it had overgrown its pot and was firmly attached to the wooden shelf below. Clearly
it was not moving with me to my new home. So much as my mother had
done, I took a few cuttings, potted them and hoped for the best.
These
two little cuttings have thrived. They quickly outgrew the little pots
I had started them in, and have since been transplanted to bigger
pots. They sit, one in my study and one on a stand in my dining
room, and I think of my mother and grandmother whenever I see them. I later took a new cutting from one of these plants and potted it
for a friend. And so the heirloom hares-foot fern continues the be 'handed down',
hopefully for many years to come.
