This We Believe
(2009-03-25)
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As I sit here looking at my child's child, I realize that I believe in keepsakes, mementos, and heirlooms that connect us to other faces and places and times. Artifacts of family are some of my most treasured possessions as they help me bridge the gap that time so easily widens. Clearly, artifacts are just that; physical items that serve to connect us. I know that a loving family, a sound set of soul-nurturing values, opportunities for a good education, and a diverse world view are the best legacies that one can inherit. Yet I hope that Asa and his siblings and cousins will also inherit some meaning-filled treasures that tie this new generation to the generations that preceded it.
I sometimes wonder if my grandmother Mimi could imagine which of her physical belongings would one day speak of her. She loved yellow roses and the unusual vase that rests in our cherry corner cupboard bears that flower that was her favorite. Mimi was spunky and witty and fun, and so holding this emblem of the soft side of her helps me to understand and relish the multiple facets that make up each of us. The vase ties me to my mother and to her mother and now to my daughter who may know its story one day.
The pewter teapot on the shelf spans generations and recalls a day when afternoon tea was properly served to friends who called. Although I was not born or raised in the area where I now live, the teapot originated from the home of my great great great grandmother Charlotte LeClerc Mentelle, born in France, who lived a mere 45 miles from where I now live. Charlotte and her husband Waldemar fled France during the Reign of Terror and located in Lexington, KY where they ran a Finishing School for young women of the area, one of whom was Mary Todd Lincoln. I carry the Mentelle name as my middle name and I enjoy the connection to Charlotte Mentelle whose hands poured tea from this sweet vessel, now dented here and there. Like "Finishing Schools", afternoon tea is no longer a part of our culture, but when I see the teapot I can vision the carriages, the long dresses, the embroidered linens, the tea-drinking women in the parlor, and I feel a part of the long line of women ancestors who have helped in spirit to make me who I am.
The cameo necklace/brooch in my jewelry box given to me by my grandmother Rose, has somehow survived to become a lovely memento of the Grand Tour undertaken by my great great grandfather in the days of big ships that carried passengers on tours of Europe. The cameo depicts Leonardo DaVinci holding a palette and brushes and Catherine De Medici, patroness of the artes, in profile. Such an interesting piece makes me wonder about the sensibilities of that long-ago ancestor who perhaps chose such a piece with the taste of his beloved in mind. What was it like to do a Grand Tour when so many from the European continent were teeming to the same U.S. shores from which the big ships just departed? How could one be a tourist in areas where residents of the area were escaping famine and poverty to seek happier shores and greater opportunities? Interestingly, I can ask myself the same question as I easily and happily fly across the Mexican border to San Miguel de Allende, while knowing that below others are desperately seeking a border by walking through a dangerously inhospitable desert. In the same way that I now ponder the disparity in the distribution of resources in our current world, I wonder what the larger questions were for my great great grandfather's generation. Are they essentially the same issues with updated circumstances? The cameo in my hand is a source of wonder and curiosity.
The teapot, the cameo, the gold oval locket on a chain, my grandmother's china in the corner cupboard, the engraved initials of my father on the photo locket that carried my mother's picture to a WW II navy ship, my mother's first reader and the Bible she carried as a bride on the arm of her handsome father, silver dollars given by my grandfather, and the small treasures that I unearth in boxes and jewelry cases in my house - are the excavated artifacts of family history. There are no Hope Diamonds, no keys to the kingdom, no secret caches of wealth. But I believe that the passage of small treasures from one generation to the next is like the handing off of the baton in a relay. Life goes on, swift and sweet, and on and on. Asa, may you relish its joy. And what small treasures shall I give to you?
© Copyright 2012, WEKU
