Heirloom

 

Join me in a walk into my dining room. It is my favorite room because it is where we share holiday meals with family, friends and relatives. Come with me into the corner of this room to meet the only heirloom in the house. My grandson has already laid claim to that item for his future home in New Paltz..

My mother, Anna, came to America as a poor immigrant from Kiev with some pocket money and a little more than the clothes on her back. Nothing of value belonged to her or the people she left behind. There was nothing to inherit; no heirlooms to pass on.

What Anna had, however, was an eye for good stuff. She could somehow recognize value in items left for the taking in the lobby of her apartment building or out in the street. Someone’s trash, was Anna’s treasure. She knew what to schlep and bring to me. That’s how I got my beautiful, valuable two flow blue antique plates; my antique ladder back chair and my vintage clock radio .I think this last item is valuable because I saw exactly the same one for sale in an upscale Madison Avenue antique store window. Unfortunately, when we were finally able to get back into the city, the store had gone out of business. I am still googling it.

This item is an RCA Victor vintage clock radio from the early 1930’s. Because it stands a bit shorter than 6 feet, it is described as a grandmother clock (not grandfather). The style of the cabinet is Art Deco Skyscraper (a skyscraper building adorns the front. The clock is electric and the radio works on old vintage tubes. Neither is in working order. It sits proudly and comfortably in the corner of our dining room, with an air of great importance.

Looking around my home at my possessions, I think this item may someday be an heirloom for one of my grandchildren (whoever decides to inherit it). The grandchild will be able to point to that clock radio and say, “I inherited that vintage from my Great Grandma Anna. There’s a story behind my heirloom. My Great Grandma would scour the streets and find one person’s trash was her treasure. It journeyed from the street in the Bronx, then to grandma and grandpa’s dining room Kew Gardens Hills to my apartment in Brooklyn, to our house in the country, to my new home in New Paltz. ”Proudly, my grandchild can say, “ That vintage clock radio that stood in the corner of a dining room is my heirloom.”

Ethyl Haber