Catching Up....

The past few weeks have been a blurr.....Adam and I drove to Phoenix on a quick turn around trip to pick up some furniture my MaMa Auten had. We left on a Sat a.m. and arrived in Phx and headed over to my Aunts at 3 pm, visited, loaded furniture, ate at my brothers restaurant, slept and headed out the next day at 6 a.m. to return home. It was great to have such wonderful time with Adam.

When my MaMa Auten passed, my Aunt Dixie and Uncle Bill needed furniture for their mobile home in beautiful Kachina Village (Flagstaff, AZ). A few years after they set up, my mom and dad purchased a mobile home 2 doors down and we spent some really wonderful times there.....we would go up on weekends to visit when we were in town and both Adam and Kristen spent many fun summer days up with them and cousins and friends.

Uncle Bill passed last February my Aunt (after some water damage) decided to close up their place and saved the 2 pieces for me that I wanted so bad (34 years!) - a drop leaf table and her dresser. The dresser and table were old old old when my MaMa Auten had them so they are really ancient pieces. Not the kind that you would see on 'Antique Roadshow' but just sentimental to me.

My MaMa Auten had a tiny gingerbread like house and it was about 20' x 20' total. Since she did not have a lot of room she had to maximize every inch/space. The window panes were beveled glass and it had crystal doorknobs. It had a front porch where we sat in the evenings and a back porch where we sat in the a.m.'s. We did a lot of porch sitting - either just the two of us talking or waiting for our ride to church or the grocery store on Wednesdays for double stamps!, watching people come and go from the Dairy Queen or with all the families and cousins sprawled all over her porch, concrete slab or lawn! I can still hear all the voices, laughter and how exciting it was for us kids when my dad or my uncle would give us a dollar as we would go to the DQ and buy dipped cones for 5 cents and it would feed 20 of us! We would make the trip back and forth delivering the yummy treats.

Inside the back door it had a tiny kitchen with an apartment size stove and refrigerator. That is where the drop leaf table was and we ate all our meals there. She was an awesome cook - a real country cook - everything was made from scratch - gravy, biscuits, pies, coconut cakes, etc. On the side is where she stored her dishes and kept her silverware in a bread box (have it). I would help her line the shelves with paper every spring and she got the kind that would fold over so a trim would hang off the shelf - lots of times birds as I remember. After church on Sundays she would get out her ice tea glasses (which I have) and make tea on the stove and poor in the glasses so we would cool off on hot Sunday days while our Sunday dinner cooked away. She had a medicine chest on the wall with a mirror and a chair underneath and I would stand on the chair and watch her cook, or stand on the chair and help her do dishes in 2 dishpans, then we would throw the dishwater out on the lawn - she was way ahead of the time for recycling!

The room next to it was a really tiny living room. She had a 'divan' and on the wall were her collection of plates and salt and pepper collections (have those). She also had a table with a tv on it (have the table) and a rocking chair (have it). In the winter she would move the divan under the window and put up her little gas stove with heating grids as she did not have central air or heat. She would light the stove with a match scratched on a rock (I have the stove, grates and even the rock!) I would stay in bed while she light the stove and then she would call me out to warm up!

Through the door and to the right was a tiny bathroom. The bathtub was a ball and claw cast iron tub - which was stolen after she passed. She did not have hot water and had to heat up my bath water in a dishpan on the stove in the kitchen and carry it into the bathroom and pour it into the tub. On the bathroom wall was a paper poem of MOTHER - M is for the many ways.....etc - wish I had that! All us little cousins were so afraid to go into that bathroom when it was dark and the roaches would come up from the bathtub drain and fly around when shocked by the light.

Outside the bathroom was her tiny bedroom. On the right was her huge white dresser. She kept her pocketbook in the right had top drawer and a box of chocolate covered turtle candy in the bottom drawer. I was not tall enough to even see the top of her dresser if was standing next to it but if I stood in the other room I could. It had long tall legs and a mirror on top. (This is the dresser my Aunt gave me and I was and am shocked at how small it is....they did cut off the legs and misplaced the mirror but the drawers are soooo tiny. I can remember her struggling to pull the huge drawer out and it is really only about 20 inches across - more like a chest of drawers). Next to the dresser was a walk in like narrow closet that I was always too afraid to go into. Then the wall across the back had her full length mirror (have that) and a cuckoo clock on top (my cousin John has that). She had a table where she did all her sewing as she did custom sewing and tailoring. The metal bed frame was against the other wall and she had a nightstand next to it with an old radio we would listen to when we went to bed. When sewing she would lay the fabric out on her bed and cut out the patterns. She made all kinds of beautiful clothes for ladies and they would come for fittings and she saved all the scraps in a scrap bag for me to play with.

So anyway, so happy to get these two pieces. I am not doing a thing to the dresser and you can see by the picture it is in my guest room, good to go. The table will be painted this weekend and distressed - will show an update when I get it finished!

I am so grateful to have all these pieces of hers and especially for the memories they all evoke when I see them.