Collecting Family Memories, not just Collecting Stuff - "Great Aunt Olga's Crystal"

I recently read an article all "Baby Boomer" parents should read... "Memo to parents: your adult kids don't want your stuff" . I get it. I see the more minimalist view of things my kids have. My own daughter felt she had to break it to me gently that she was dumping her china cabinet. The china cabinet that proudly displayed her dishes. Dishes that had originally been bought in and brought from Norway by her great grandmother, my maternal grandmother Dagmar. She explained that she treasured those dishes but did not see the need to display them for all the world to see when they came out only at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Again, I get it.



Or do I? Top shelve in my china cabinet sits hand blown antique-looking crystal glasses with gold rims. They once belonged to my mother. She said they were given to her by my great Aunt Olga who told her that she didn't care much for her own daughter in law and liked her so "here they are". That was in 1955. Mom never once used them. Now they sat in my china cabinet. I also have never once used them. We always referred to them as "Aunt Olga's crystal" but as I got into genealogy/family history I found that great Aunt Olga could not have given them to Mom as she and her husband never had any children. Perhaps it was her sister, great Aunt Tekla who gave them to her? However these ladies were my Dad's aunts, my mom barely knew them as they lived in California and 1955 was the only time Mom went to California. I, never knew my great aunts at all. Yet "Aunt Olga's crystal" has been in either my Mom's or my china cabinet, occasionally dusted for sixty three years now. 

NEVER USED ONCE AND... I THINK THEY ARE UGLY.

As I move further and further along in my family history journey I have collected many precious photos, documents and stories. I have also "collected" many precious 2nd, 3rd, even 6th  etc. cousins both here in the U.S and in Scandinavia who have helped to flesh out the story of our family. I learned that Aunt Olga had panned for gold in Alaska with her husband when she was young and I found pride that she was strong enough to move on without him when she discovered him to be "a ladies man". But "Aunt Olga's crystal" that perhaps wasn't even hers? It never held meaning for me. I was just collecting "STUFF".  OUT IT GOES.


This coming weekend my German born husband and I are hosting an Oktoberfest German dinner for family and a few friends. So it was again necessary for the time consuming job of dusting and polishing the pride of this baby boomer woman...the expensive, Thomasville, dark wood, lighted, china cabinet displaying seldom used matching china services, crystal and silver place settings.
They were gifts from family and family friends now long gone who came to our wedding at the Glenview Evangelical Free Church and arrived at the reception carrying a nicely wrapped box from Marshall Fields. They gave us those place settings along with their love, prayers and best wishes that this young couple would have a long and happy life together. Forty-Five years later that china, crystal and silver hold meaning for me, so they stay.


I have made peace with the reality that my filled china cabinet doesn't hold the same meaning for my kids. When I am gone, to them it is just STUFF.  OUT IT GOES.

Yup, I get it.

p.s. "Aunt Olga's crystal" will stay boxed in my basement for awhile just in case a cousin feels it would have meaning for them. If so, it is yours for the taking. Come and get it.

p.p.s. June 2023 update - We sold our large house and downsized to a townhome. "Aunt Olga's crystal"? Out it went, along with lots of other "stuff". The china cabinet, a baby boomer anachronism? It stays of course!