The downside of a house of mementoes is that it is hard to throw anything out.  I think the oldest thing I  have is something that eluded getting thrown out by several generations, but I don’t really know its story.  This is all I know.
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• Until I was a teenager, I thought a “Sampler” was a box of chocolates. Then my grandmother died and many of her items found their way to us in California. Included in this trove was a sampler — a framed textile and another framed object which I will describe below.

A “sampler”, loosely defined, is a piece of cloth into which is stitched, by needlepoint, a picture or some writing, or both. They have been around a long time. Shakespeare mentions one, and some exist from ancient Egypt. Samplers were very popular in colonial America until the end of the 19th Century. Indeed, I’m sure there are those who are stitching them as I write. In New England, girls were expected to make them. The oldest girl created a family record, stitching in the names of her parents, their birthplace and birthdates, and place and date of their wedding. Also listed are her siblings and their  birthdates and  places of birth. There is often an inspirational or philosophical poem as well.

The other girls also made samplers, but rather than a family record, they show various scenes, and often, for some reason, copies of the alphabet. (See the cover photograph of a book I own as the featured image.) Since (I suppose) the names of long-dead relatives are of interest primarily to their descendants, whereas bucolic or other scenes have universal appeal, collectors are less interested in a “family record” sampler.

The sampler I have is of the family record type:

It lists the parents as Nathan Morse and Eunice Cleveland, both born in Medfield, Massachusetts in 1779 and 1783, followed by their eight children (born over a period of 15 years — five girls and three boys). It was “wrought” by daughter Eunice in Warwick, Massachusetts, and is accompanied by a poem reminding us of mortality and generations to come:

Our ancestors departed bloom

Bespeaks we’re hastening to the tomb

We’ll keep a record of our names

And meditate in worldly fame

But generations yet unborn

Our lives in virtue may adorn.

 

I am one of those in the fifth “generation yet unborn”.

There was a related bonus that arrived from my grandmother’s possessions — a framed handwritten list of all the names on the Sampler, with their ages at the time of its composition, and, remarkably, accompanied by a lock of hair from each family member. I’m descended from Sally Morse, the second-born daughter. Initially, I wondered, why is it that my family has the sampler “wrought” by Eunice Morse, instead of her descendants? The answer is written next to and under  her name: Died July 25, 1831 aged 20 years 2 months 8 days. I assume it is her sister Sally’s handwriting on this record.

What makes these special to me is more than something from  a family of ancestors I otherwise would know very little about. It allows me to get a glimpse — very small, of course — of something important to this family, their hopes, and no doubt, tragedy — and their desires, reflected in the verse, to pass it on to me and my generation.

I walked around the house looking for antiques. We have a few, but I don't own any of them. However the house is older than I am.
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My Favorite Things

I confess I’m not very sentimental.  (See With This Ring and Baby Shoes)

But there are some things I own that are older than I am and that I treasure.

One is certainly the brass dinner bell my grandmother rang to call the guests to meals at her small Catskill hotel.  (See My Heart Remembers My Grandmother’s Hotel,  Hotel Kittens,  and The Cat and the Forshpeiz)

 

Another  –  a graceful ceramic pitcher and bowl that belonged to a beloved aunt who died tragically when I was quite young.  (See White Shoulders for Aunt Frances)

 

And two small silver boxes my husband’s parents brought from South America where they’d lived for several years after fleeing Europe and before emigrating to the States.  (See Tracing Our Roots)

 

And two large seashells my mother found as a child on the Rockaway beach where she grew up.  (See Still Life)

And of course the Eisenhower jacket my father wore when he served as an Army captain during World War II.  (See Parkchester, Celebrate Me Home)

These are among my favorite things and I’d hate to part with any one of them –  so I guess you can call me sentimental after all.

– Dana Susan Lehrman 

... it is the only thing I have that belonged to grandma Rose.
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Regular pruning is advised
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I probably have other more valuable things that are older than I am, but these are the two I treasure the most.
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Which reminds me of the old joke of the waiter who, serving a table of picky, impatient, bossy, demeaning, and complaining diners, asks the question: “Is anything ok?” 
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I am out of bounds and I know it but the title ‘Broadcast News’ coincides with one of my favorite movies so I am going with that.

Wonderful writing and three future movie stars; Future Oscar winners Holly Hunter and William Hurt and Albert Brooks (Oscar nominee for Broadcast News.)

Released in 1987 it still holds up well today.

I have a number of movies I have watched multiple times and Broadcast News is one of them, in fact it is on my list to re-watch sometime this month.