Shopping at garage sales is my jam. I’m a handy crafter and relish making old things into new things. Somehow, I don’t see them as they are, but as what they can be.
Where someone would see an ugly old octagonal 70s end table with orange felt on the sides and a broken door, I see a little bed house for a small dog.
Today this estate sale I’m at is filled with many wonderful pieces of jewelry, furniture, art, and vintage clothes… someone’s entire lifetime of possessions.
I walk among the items determined to breathe the next chapter into something and make it reborn. But I can’t help but find it sad that no one in the family wanted this person‘s memories.
So when I find this 1930s secretary desk in a darkened room, my wheels started turning. It’s not as ornate as other secretaries I’ve seen, but furniture was made to last back then, so while plain and simple, it’s just waiting for a new useful life.
In my mind, I see a crafting table with hidden storage, something that looks nice in a room, but then when you’re ready to craft, you can open the doors, pull down the table and boom…instant crafting studio.
I can’t wait to get it into my garage workshop to make it new again.
Once home, I open all the drawers and doors and look at it carefully, creating a blueprint in my mind of its new image and how to get it there. With the new plan, I pull out all the drawers and take off all the doors. But then behind each of the drawers, I find some old folded, black-and-white pictures.
“Hmm, what are you guys doing in there still?” I say to myself. I do that a lot.
By the faded ink, thin paper and crinkled edged borders, I recognize them as old-time photos I had seen in scrapbooks.
I unfold and flatten them out and take a look. One is a group of smiling young women, sitting next to a soda fountain. From their hairstyles and dress, it appears to be from the 1940s.
“What a cute group. I bet they were having a good time when this was taken,” I notice.
Another is a picture of a man in a sailor suit with a precocious crooked grin, standing on the deck of a ship with his arm around a gun.
“I’m not sure I would smile with my hand around a gun, but he’s very nice looking. He has one of those superhero jaws.” I laugh.
The third one is a larger photo folded accordion style from being trapped behind the drawer. I carefully untwine it to reveal a picture of the handsome square-jawed sailor and a beautiful young woman.
“With these big smiles on their faces they look overjoyed, like happiness is bursting right out of them,” I admire.
Then I realize one of the girls at the lunch counter is the young woman with the cute guy in the photo. She has the biggest round, bright eyes-just like a doll.
I sit for a little while, with the three pictures in front of me, weaving a tale in my mind with more questions than answers.
“Maybe it was a whirlwind wartime romance. What if they locked eyes across a crowded room and instantly fell in love? What if they were star crossed lovers, never supposed to meet, but fate got in their way.”
I chuckle at my vivid imagination and put down the pictures.
“Or maybe I just need to lay off the Hallmark movies.”
I get to work on the secretary, but while sanding and installing new hinges and drawer slides, my brain concocted a whole movie playing in my head.
She worked at a jewelry store and he came to buy a locket for his sweet little old mother before he went off to war, so she’d remember him always. They gazed into each other’s eyes and were mesmerized, staring without stopping until the store closed. Then he proposed out of nowhere, and even though he she knew nothing about him, she said yes.
Before I know it, hours passed and I had done very little to this piece of furniture. All I can think about is these pictures and this couple.
I have an insatiable need to find out what happened to them. I can’t help look into their eyes wondering what their story was. Their faces were so happy.
All night my mind raced. I had to know something, anything about them. So the next day I drive back to the estate sale to see what I could find out.
I show the pictures to the manager and ask about the people.
“I know this is unusual, but I found these pictures in a piece of furniture I bought here yesterday. First, I want to return them, but second, I’m wondering if you know anything about these people.”
She shrugs her shoulders.
“The only information I have is their names, Kate and George Barry,” she explains.
Disappointed, I begin to walk away when she runs after me.
“Wait! If it helps, the Barry’s are in living in the St. Francis home fairly close to here. I bet they would love to get these pictures back. They don’t have any family and I’m sure they’d love the company.”
Walking to my car, I start to feel like a stalker.
“This obsession has gone too far. I need to get over this,” I tell myself.
But before I know it, my car is driving itself right over to the Saint Francis nursing home on the other side of town.
As I pull into the parking lot, I pause at my steering wheel.
“I think you’re crazy. What are you going to say to these people?”
But apparently, I don’t listen to myself because before I know it I’m at the nurse’s desk asking for them by name.
“I’m here to see Kate and George Barry, please?” I confidently declare.
And that was all it took. She points in the direction of a recreation room and I’m on my own.
Within a minute, I’m staring into the faces of many old people looking into their eyes, trying to see a glimpse of the young people still alive inside of them.
“Which ones are they?” I ask myself.
And then I see a gentleman with a square jaw, a little saggy, but still looking like a superhero drawn in a comic book.
I approach the man.
“George Barry?”
“Yes.”
When he looks up at me, smiling, there is no doubt in my mind. It is George. I’d know that grin and chin anywhere.
“You don’t know me, but I just bought a secretary at your estate sale and found these pictures. I thought you’d like to have them back.”
I hand him the pictures and he lets out a big belly laugh.
“Katie come here and look at these pictures.”
An old woman in a wheelchair turns around, and I can see that same young girl in the photos with the beautiful Cupie doll eyes. It’s her.
He hands her the pictures and she laughs too.
“Can you ever believe that we were that young?”
A sudden wave of curiosity took hold of me and I couldn’t help myself.
“I’ve been wondering about these pictures for the last day and a half. Please satisfy my curiosity. Did you have a wartime romance? Was it wonderful?”
The duo glance at each other and laugh heartily.
“My dear, I’m so sorry. But neither of us ever married. We’re brother and sister,” George replies.
With that one sentence, I feel like melting into a pool on the floor and seep into the pavement. But after the initial shock, I realize I still want to hear their story. The fact that they weren’t married, probably makes it even more interesting.
“If you’re willing, I’d love to hear about what went on in these pictures,” I ask.
They smile at each other, offer me a seat and sweetly spin the tale of their close lifelong sibling relationship. An hour later I’m back in my car satisfied and grateful for what I learned.
“Sometimes you have to look at people and things in a different way to understand their journey. Everything old is new again.”
(C) Suzanne Rudd Hamilton
SUZANNE RUDD HAMILTON 