Looking back: The little red chair

When I was a small child, my paternal grandfather lived about a mile away from us.

One day he walked up to our house carrying a little red chair that had been in his family. He wanted my father and his children to have it.

I was the youngest and the only daughter, so I ended up making the chair my own.

When I was growing up, I kept it sitting in front of an old vanity that I had in my bedroom until I left home. I could sit on the chair and brush my hair and “primp.”

 I liked the story behind the chair. My grandfather, who was born in 1885, used it to learn to walk. Someone would turn over the chair so that it set steady on the floor, and my grandfather would push it across the floor.

Apparently, someone cut the legs down short so the chair could be used for this purpose.

You can see where the chair back and the top of the front legs are smoothed down from rubbing against the floor.

Granddaddy didn’t have an easy life when he was young. His father died when he was two years old, and his mother died when he was four. He had three older siblings. Apparently he lived with different relatives growing up, eventually living with his paternal grandmother.

Granddaddy in 1889, when he was four years old.

Granddaddy when he was a young man.

The chair has been painted red since I can remember. I don’t know why someone painted over the wood with thick red paint. Perhaps it was to brighten it up for children.

Now I keep the chair in either our den or living room. It’s currently sitting in the living room, providing a seat for a stuffed snowman that I’ll keep out a few more weeks.

I have an old doll that would probably look better on the chair than this stuffed snowman.

(Note: Do you think I should try to remove the red paint and show the original wood? Would that hurt the wood?)

I have other pieces of furniture plus other treasures that have been in my family a long time. I’m trying to record their stories so I don’t forget and so my nieces and nephews and other family members will know their meaning.

And I have so many family stories to record, including my father’s writings and letters he wrote his sister during World War II.

Not all my memories are good, but that’s the way life is. The good can be remembered, and the bad can be learned from.

Do you have any pieces of furniture that have been in your family for a long time?

Family and time

My father when he was about 3 years old. He was outside the home he was born in.

In his life story that he wrote before he died, my father noted that he was “one of nine children” of his parents. His oldest sister died of pneumonia when she was four years old, he wrote, but the rest of the siblings lived to be 60 or over.

He never knew his oldest sister because she died before he was born. He was the sixth of the nine children, and he grew up with two older brothers, two older sisters, two younger brothers and one younger sister.

On Sunday, I received word that his younger sister had died. Only one of the nine is still living, my father’s youngest brother.

I’ve been thinking about my extended family.

My father’s family was quiet but friendly. When I was a child, I preferred visiting with my mother’s family because there were cousins around my age to play with. On my father’s side, I was the youngest grandchild. The cousin closest in age to me was about six years older, but she did play with me when she was younger.

I remember how we got together at Christmas every year, usually at the house of one of my uncles. He worked for Dr. Pepper, so we always drank Dr. Pepper when we visited him.

I remember as a child staying with my aunt, the one who just died, when my brother had to be in the hospital for a few days. She and her family lived in Lynchburg. I liked walking up and down the city street with my cousin and playing in their backyard.

By the time I grew up and moved away to go to school, the family get-togethers were fewer. Gradually, I saw family at the reunions that I occasionally attended or at funerals.

I’m been thinking about the passage of time, how those family gatherings were so long ago. I’ve been thinking about my grandparents, raising their children on a farm, tragically losing one daughter at such a young age.

I suspect that many of you have similar stories of family, of growing up with aunts and uncles and cousins, of losing family members with the passage of time.

It’s the way life works. I know that.

But it still makes me sad.

I have a large extended family. How about you? Did you have a lot of aunts, uncles and cousins growing up?

Visitors from Japan

Tiny painted dolls from Japan sent to me by my father's Army buddy about the same time this story took place.

This story becomes a different story when I consider what I knew then and what I know now.

What I knew then:

I was about 7 years old, and it was suppertime. My brother closest to me in age—two years older—ran with me into the house at my mother’s call, and we began to wash up at the little sink in the corner of the kitchen of our farmhouse.

I could tell my mother was not in a good mood. She was frowning, she wasn’t saying much, and she moved quickly to place bowls of food on the table, letting them slam a bit as she set them down.

I knew better than to say anything, so I just joined the rest of the family at the table.

Later in the evening, my parents told my brothers and me the news: one of Daddy’s Army buddies was sponsoring two Japanese students on a tour of the United States, and he wanted to know if the young women could stay at our house for a few days. Mama and Daddy had said yes.

I was ecstatic. Company! And two girls, college aged! And they were from a foreign country! What could be more fun?

My contamination OCD hadn’t touched me yet, so I had no concerns about strangers in the house or strangers using the bathroom.

So that summer Yoko and Famiko stayed with us for several days. They were wonderful guests, kind, always eager to learn something new about the U.S.

Key ring given to me by Yoko and Famiko. Its woven ball has a bell in it.

I followed them around, awestruck at being around college girls who came from a place far away.

We showed them around the countryside. They were interested in the crops that we grew, especially the tobacco that many of the farmers in the community still raised back then. We took them to some nearby sights, including Natural Bridge.

When they left, I went with the rest of family to see them off at the bus station. My mother gave them each a tube of hand lotion.

When we got home, I remember my mother immediately tearing off all the bedclothes from the beds they had used and washing them.

Yoko and Famiko sent us Christmas cards for a few years after that, sometimes with little crackers included, sometimes an origami figure.

What I know now:

My mother did not want the Japanese college students to visit us.

It was only years later that I connected my mother’s bad mood on the evening we found out about their visit with her feelings about having them visit.

She was a teenager during the years the United States was involved in the conflicts of World War II. She harbored resentment against Japanese people, even though the war had been over at least 25 years by then.

My father was a World War II veteran. He served as a medic in the Pacific Theatre. He was wounded in battle.

But he made the decision that, despite my mother’s resistance, we would host the two Japanese college students.

I don’t know why Daddy was so willing when my mother was not. My mother told me once that part of the reason was because Daddy thought so much of his Army buddy.

What strikes me as impressive, though, is that neither parent discussed any of their possibly conflicted feelings with my brothers and me. My mother never said anything about not wanting the young women to visit.

My parents treated Yoko and Famiko with respect and tried to make their visit fun and educational.

It’s a better story with what I know now.

Have you ever had visitors that changed your view of the world?