We Keep Coming Back

So we keeping come back to the stuff we love, which isn’t always a good thing. In this instance, yes, it is a mighty good thing—at least, from where I sit. Yesterday afternoon the Hollis cousins of my generation gathered at Aunt Mary’s house in Houston on the two-month anniversary of her death. It was an afternoon where we were invited to preview the upcoming estate sale. Cousin Becky had already told me that Jean, who is not actually our blood relative, but who nonetheless has a close connection to Aunt Mary and to our family, had encountered Aunt Mary’s aura on recent visits to her home. “That doesn’t surprise me,” I said, sitting in my car outside the grocery store in the tiny Texas community I call home part of the year. I want to feel Aunt Mary’s presence, along with that of my mother and daddy and all the other family that I have loved, those who have defined and shaped my life. Jean smelled Aunt Mary. Not the Boucheron fragrance she loved, something I found out only after her death, but her very essence, something one could know only by hugging another often. Embedded in my memory are the many beautiful smells I associate with Aunt Mary and her home—room fragances from Neiman-Marcus, and what I always thought was her facial soap and cream. Maybe it was her Boucheron.

It’s interesting—what any of us have chosen to take as keepsakes from the William Woodrow “Frog” and Mary Louise Hollis Todd home. We all had an opportunity earlier to pick a few things before the estate sale began to take shape. Yesterday was our opportunity to buy early and to take our time doing so while we visited and ate the Hollis family chocolate cake, baked by my middle sister Sue. We’ve had that cake a lot lately—already three times this year when gathering on Sherwood Forest Street at the Todd’s rambling colonial built on over two acres on the outskirts of Houston some time in the 1950s. Unlike earlier times in the life of our family, that cake has taken a life of its on. It is the Hollis chocolate cake—attributed to our distant relative by marriage, Anna Mae Sowell—a recipe most likely from a Hershey’s chocolate box some time in the early part of the 20th century. Cousin Marilyn said yesterday that Aunt Mary used to put the butter and sugar icing called for in that recipe on brownies. Sue and I don’t remember Aunt Mary being all that interested in cooking, but for some reason, I do recall her making pecan pie for the holidays.

Yesterday, Revere Ware pots, along with a large assortment of utensils and pans, had spilled out of the kitchen cabinets and drawers. The pantry stood open, emptied of the Arabia of Finland dishes—blue laurel bands with flowers—and the pressed glass tumblers, only four remaining after all these years. Her German stainless from Houston’s famed Sakowitz is already a gift to me from the estate. I bought service for eight “on time” from Scarborough’s Department Store in Austin in the early 70s because it reminded me of my elegant Aunt Mary. It made me feel special too. How odd, stainless flatware making someone feel special. Of the gifts from the estate that I picked, that stainless is beyond value. “Sterling?” someone asked when I told of what I had selected as one of my gifts. “No, just stainless,” I say. The classic English rattail pattern, called Murray Hill, although still produced in China for the German company, isn’t the same. But then, what is?

While I was aware of what others were selecting to buy yesterday, on this family day—my two sisters focused on old Christmas tree ornaments—I roamed through the house, unable to make sense of the chaos. This was no longer a home. Every table surface was burdened with china, glass and metal. The only remaining bed was piled high with stacks of stuff. Aunt Mary’s washbowl set that had adorned the hallway bathroom for all the years I could remember had been removed to the dining room. I was seeing things that I didn’t remember and lots of evidence that all Aunt Mary’s treasure did not glitter. Closets and drawers had been turned inside out to reveal all the life that had simply been stowed away. And there was no Boucheron, no lovely soap or face cream to soften the harshness of this home-no-longer-Aunt Mary’s-home on this hot, sticky September afternoon in Houston, Texas. I wasn’t sad really. I just knew that, once again, everything had changed. Something mighty important had left Sherwood Forest Street, in spite of the affection we shared on this afternoon.

As I dug through a display case of jewelry, I wondered aloud if Uncle Frog hadn’t had a ranger-style western belt buckle set. Then I saw a silver set with tiny garnets set in the gold floral decoration. It was marked “Sterling Mexico”. Later, half buried among the odds and ends on top of the oak chest of drawers in their bedroom, there lay his tooled belt, silver and gold ranger belt buckle and tip, tarnished and worn. Yes, I wanted this. And I wanted his game warden badge—this one from 40 years ago a copper shield overlaid with pot metal and adorned with the shape of Texas and a typical star, the engraving fading into the background. I remembered Mother and Daddy commenting that Uncle Frog was “a dollar a year man”, a term it turns out for men who in times of war perform government work not quite for free. And I remember gatherings where one of Uncle Frog’s best friends who actually was a game warden was present with his wife. He wasn’t my blood uncle, and I wouldn’t have guessed that I would care, but then life is full of surprises.

We were there to buy, if we found something we wanted, and though a comment or two suggested an attitude different from mine, I was happy to pay for these treasures. After all, it was a choice. I was happy to pay, especially knowing that I had already been gifted beyond any expectation from the life and hard work of my aunt and uncle. I had no expectations. I would have taken home lots more, like the two packs of soft cotton bandanas, red, marked $3 and $2.50. But where do you stop, and where do you start? Beyond the very personal things that had belonged to this uncle of no blood kin, I had also bought from Aunt Mary’s antique treasures three things that I can with good conscience offer for sale in a business that likely never would have been born had it not been for the love of treasure mining that I inherited from Daddy and Aunt Mary. Theirs knew boundaries, however.

How suiting that I live in a barn here in Texas. Barns are for storing, and one day all barns are emptied. So too for this barn. But for now, I stow and I sort and I offer for sale a couple of times a year significant pieces of treasure. Much of what remains after each offering has a little less value. People who are genuinely interested in buying these days want most to buy the very best. A worn belt buckle on a tooled belt too small for most men and so used up as to have little practical use left in it—well, not so much something to sell. But then, it’s not for sale anyway. In my mind, I keep coming back to things I left behind yesterday—the Arabia of Finland dishes and the four remaining pressed glass tumblers. The silver flatware was stolen long ago, along with other keepsakes, while my aunt and uncle were away at their house on the bay. Most of the best glass and china were chosen as gifts by cousins shortly after Aunt Mary’s death two months ago. But it wouldn’t have mattered to me anyway. I value most the everyday dishes, and the old tumblers Aunt Mary would have bought on one of her treasure hunting outings. Maybe I was even with her. I don’t remember. It’s all stuff, and it’s all in motion, just like we are. Lucky we are to hold treasure in our hands when the treasure that matters most now must be counted in our hearts.

We Keep Coming Back—Normangee, Texas (September 14, 2009)
R. Harold Hollis