We have some old dessert plates from my grandmother - since they were already somewhat chipped and worn I didn’t think twice about sticking them in the dishwasher. Some of them are now white plates.
I run into old letters from my most serious boyfriend from time to time. There’s also a big 8x10 photo of him. (Looking very cute - he looks like a stuffy middle aged lawyer now - which is what he is - I don’t even like his taste in music - we are facebook friends so I know what he listens to.) Every time I see it, I think how much better DH has aged! I have no idea what the letters say, I have not reread them.
Guilt can be a huge stumbling block to getting rid of items that have been inherited. I think it’s important to acknowledge that one can remember the person separate from their “things.” Sometimes there is guilt because of perceived value. Usually, that value is grossly overestimated.
We have just gone through a major downsize to a 2BR, 2BA condo. That necessitated getting rid of a lot of stuff. My parents both died very unexpectedly when I was 24 years old. I kept and held onto far too much of my mother’s things for FAR too long. I only have one Ds, and he was not interested in any of it other than some Christmas decorations. He never knew them - they died before Dh and I were married. I kept her sterling flatware (have you priced it out lately?! Wow!), and a few of their things. We have an offsite storage unit that is a 5x10. Goal is to get that down to a 5x5, which will be easy if we can ever figure out how to get ds’s stuff we have stored to him. I know there are a few more things in there I could get rid of. I can think of only one or two things that I really want to hold onto that belonged to my mom. I do have a lot of photos. The passing of time does make a big difference with regard to guilt, I think.
One thing about going thru stuff before parents die is to know where stuff came from. My Uncle lives in my grandmother’s house. His life long hobby has been “picking” at yard sales and antique auctions. He has the uncanny ability to find the one thing that is really worth something. Most of it he turns around and sells, but has kept some nice stuff. But while it is antique and high quality it is not sentimental stuff. I’ve been after him start an inventory of what he has and real value (has lots of hand thrown flow blue, likes oriental stuff) since most of nieces and nephews won’t want it but don’t want to give it away for a song.
For instance he has lots of leather bound books on shelves - pretty but not special. Then he has a tiny pocket notebook that my great-grandfather used to keep appointments as a doctor. That’s what I want.
My parents don’t have tons of special stuff to pass on since their house burned down when I was 25. What Mom does have was shared with her by sisters. I will be glad to take it even if I don’t really want it if it makes parents feel better about downsizing. It won’t be forever.
I came into a ton of photos when my dad died. We took pictures of them or scanned them (honestly the former delivered pretty amazing quality) and then didn’t worry about the prints.
A friend of mine has gotten rid of all her 3 kids’ growing up pictures in favor of one USB stick plus a photo book for each kid.
I made crazy quilt style Christmas stockings from the girls’ old baby clothes. In some cases I was able to remove a pocket so we could keep the garment or pass it on to someone else. It’s nice to see the little fabric scraps each year!
OP could do something like that with the clothing. If any of the old dishes break, consider a mosaic!
I have to say, I did keep some of their clothing too. I limited myself to one bin for all three, and only kept the things that evoked the strongest feelings for me. It wasn’t the fancy clothes, but the little onsies that I could still feel their little bodies in when I held them up.
Some craftspersons make jewelry and other art objects from sterling. My sister gave me a sterling spoon ring which I recently handed down to D. It was made with the substantial sterling handle of a spoon.
@silverlady: I’m with you. Actually, I’ll argue with you over which one of us gets the sterling! I have two and a half sets of sterling flatware, and a ton of serving pieces. Always looking for more, especially in my great-grandmother’s 1880 pattern.
In the trenches now as my mom is moving to small assisted living apartment. Went through boxes yesterday with her grandmother’s nightgown, crocheted tablecloths, the dresses my mom & grandmother wore to my wedding, my mom’s wedding gown, etc. Hard to take those to Goodwill. Good reminder of how exhausting it is to have so much stuff #firstworldproblems
My terminally ill aunt was the last of her generation, and had put a little tag on anything she thought people might want. My mom (my aunt had no children or spouse) was executrix, and sent all the family a list of the significant items and told people to mark anything they might like as a keepsake but she had the final say. It was actually very affirming to see the group come together and cooperate, but of course that isn’t how it always works. Auntie had already had a picnic where she put out her considerable collection of jewelry so she could tell us about the pieces and give those away too.
I would rather have a million sets of china or ugly old books that belonged to someone I love than a million dollars. And if something has been kept for decades, I wouldn’t want to be the one to pitch it. Otoh, my inlaws are honest to God hoarders who can’t distinguish between a case of mannequins and great-grandpa’s WW1 journal – it’s all just invaluable stuff, to them.
I have kind of an early “Antiques Roadshow” story about our silverware. An old (aged) friend of my husband’s family had no heirs and was cleaning out her family home in Louisville shortly before our wedding. We were astonished that she gifted us with her family silverware, the whole thing, including odd serving pieces like an oyster ladle. The only items missing in the service-for-eight set were two knives. We moved to Chicago on our honeymoon and brought one of the knives to Marshall Field’s, which had an antique silver department at the time, to see if we could find something similar to fill in. The dealer asked how much of this set we had. When we told him, he asked if he could see it as the knife was a very unusual piece. When we brought it in, he told us that we had an amazing set of a very limited pattern and that, most likely, we would not find replacements for the knives because the entire knife was sterling, not just the handle, the softness of which caused them to become unusable over time. The set was made by Whiting, and the patterns and stock for this particular silverware had been destroyed in a fire in the late 1800s. Year later, the Internet confirmed this:
He offered to buy this set from us should we ever consider selling and gave us an appraisal that knocked our socks off. We’ll never sell it, but we use it often, and our son knows he will inherit it as one of our most valuable items. We have a formal appraisal for it, and it is specifically mentioned in our will so there will be no confusion about where it goes when we are gone.
We don’t put it in the dishwasher, and I love polishing silver.
@VeryHappy and @ChoatieMom it is nice to know that there are kindred spirits within the CC community. I managed to snag 2 pieces of Whiting’s Ivory pattern on an internet auction site for next to nothing. I still get excited when I think about it. So beautiful! The workmanship is superb.
After my mom died we all went through her things - she had boxes of old pictures, report cards, letters I wrote home from camp. We all loved it. Interesting to read the comments my teachers wrote about me when I was younger. I’m so glad she kept all of that. I laughed and cried reading my letters to her.
I also took her wedding dress and my grandmothers. I don’t think anyone will wear them but I did contemplate using them to get ring bearer pillows made or something like that as the next generation starts getting married.
China, flatware, etc - I’d let go of that, but I do use the flatware my mom worked for and bought every paycheck before she was married every Thanksgiving at the grown up table.
My mother and her mother and a number of her aunts loved fine china. So do we, and my sisters and most of my cousins don’t. So we have a LOT of inherited old china, as well as old and new china we’ve bought… Now we’re planning to use all of it at once for our daughter’s wedding reception. It’s given my wife permission to buy a few fill-in pieces on eBay, something she has greatly enjoyed.
We sat with our kids and asked them what they wanted from our home. Each gave us a SHORT list…very short.
We have labeled those items with their names. Most likely, we will give to them sooner.
Everything else in this house that we don’t use…will get donated or given away. I might put out a sign at the neighborhood tag sale…but that’s as close as I’ll come to selling anything.
I do NOT want to leave my kids what my mom left me…in terms of “stuff” to get rid of.
If you really want to help your kids, go through your own personal business papers and file the important ones where they can easily be found (and show them where they are). Put all your passwords, account numbers together somewhere so the kiddos aren’t wondering where you had on-line accounts etc. Or where the safety deposit box key is. And since the govt requires some on-line accounts now it’s more important for access than ever.
My dad has paper files he still may need right now but filed away separately and marked TOD (toss on death).
It’s a lot easier and faster to decide what to do with extra china than what to do with old saved papers and account info.
As it happened…they didn’t want the same items. But if that had been an issue…the oldest would have gotten to pick first…then the other kid…than the oldest…then the other kid.
We would have gone back and forth…letting them pick on item at a time.
But honestly…between the two of them, they wanted less than ten things total.
In our family the decision breaker is traditionally a coin toss.
First choice determined by coin toss after an initial division of “what do you really want that I don’t care about?”
Then you start splitting stuff up. Sometimes it’s just a “you take it because I don’t care” or “I only want ONE thing, you take the rest” (no interest or no room on my part but if you sell it all I get half)
Usually done in categories…china…coin toss, go. Jewelry…maybe coin toss but maybe you got the last first choice now I do.
There are things we mutually want sometimes–sometimes those are divided on a “caretaker” basis. You can take it and keep it in your home–but you can’t sell it or give it away.
