Pieces of family history

Regarding “Frugality,” (March 6): Both my husband and I have a love of generational family belongings. But as with Chris Greene’s friend, no younger family members are interested in great-grandma’s oak sideboard or clawfooted kitchen table. And certainly not great-great-great-grandma’s Lincoln rocker.

Why our sentimentality for and appreciation of these pieces of our family’s history have never taken root in the next generation, we cannot say. Perhaps for us, as for the Gen Zers, practicality was the initial driver. As newly married 20-year-olds, the parents’ extras were simply welcome necessities. However, with the hall tree, hope chest and mantle clock came the stories of our family’s origins in the United States. Each picture, chair and piece of silverware helped fill in a part of the proverbial puzzle. And we were intrigued.

To confront the realization that stories told and retold, clarified and, I’m sure, exaggerated, will fade along with the once popular chair fabric, is a step into the changes that come with the four D’s (death, downsizing, divorce and debt). As Amor Towles laments in “A Gentleman in Moscow,” we humans are “prepared” to lose those we know and love. But that old wardrobe we hid in as a child should remain a constant. To think a young person will own that wardrobe and ponder what stories it will tell about her is reassuring.

And just maybe, it will help the two of us finally clean out the things we’ve “saved” in the garage and park a car in there!

Carol Godell, Spring