STEWART-L Archives

Archiver > STEWART > 2002-01 > 1011713925


From: Mary Anne Sibley <>
Subject: [STEWART-L] Send this to your kids!!!
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 08:38:19 -0700




I received this from another list, and had to pass it on....so true ! !

"CLEANING MOTHER'S HOUSE" by Michael John Neill
=====================================================================

It has been nearly a year since fictional genealogist Barbara passed away.
Her daughter, Charlene reflects upon that year in a letter to her friend
Karen. Charlene truly has been busy. Barbara is probably rolling over in
her grave.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Karen,

As usual, my cards are late. It has been a busy year.

We spent much of the year settling up Mother's estate. The house sold
well, but cleaning it took longer than we expected.

You are probably the only person who did not know Mother was a genealogy
buff. She told practially every human she encountered. I'm convinced that
genealogy 'nut' was the most accurate phrase. The stuff was all over the
house. The inheritance would have been enough to pay for my new Mercedes
had she not insisted on spending money on that blasted hobby. I don't know
why she couldn't be more like Tom's mother, Nadine spends her day doing
needlepoint and watching reruns of 50s telvision shows. Tom just does not
realize how lucky he is, but men never do. My mother had to run off to
cemeteries and courthouses! She even went to a fconference in Davenport,
Iowa, last year! Can you imagine? Davenport, Iowa! After she got back,
she was so excited about all that she had learned and all the fun she had.
She was planning on going to another one in California this year. Well,
the grim reaper took care of that.

Because of my promotion to head of knick knack sales at
Garbageforless.com, I had not been home for several years. I was appalled
to learn that Mother had converted my old bedroom into her family history
'headquarters." My shelves of Teen Beat and other magazines documenting
my adolescence had been replaced with old family photographs, copies of old
documents, and something called family group sheets. She even got rid of
the pants I wore to my first junion high dance. I cried at the thought.

I could not bear to go in the room and be reminded that my childhood had
been stripped from me and replaced with an obsession with the past. I told
the children that if they would clean the room and prepare the items for
the garage (should I say 'garbage"?) sale they could have the proceeds. I
learned what true entrepreneurs they are.

Kenny stripped Mother's hard drive in under ten minutes. I kept hearing
him say "GedCom is GedGone....GedCom is GedGone...." I have no idea what
it meant, but the computer fetched a good price. Before he unplugged the
computer, he erased all Mom's floppy disks and downloaded public domain
games. He sold these at a nominal price.

Susan took the old photograpsh to a flea market and was able to sell many
of them. Some special labels had to be taken off and we had to take them
out of protective envelopes. Mother had written the names on the back of
many of them. At least none of those pictures of depressing old dead
people had our last name written on them. I don't want to be associated
with such sour people.

Mother had some type of old plat book -- whatever that is. Kenny tore out
the pages individually and sold them separately on eBay. It was so clever.
His dad said he got much more than if he had left the book in one piece.

Susan didn't tear the bibles apart though. I thought that showed a
tremendously good sense. She's learning that not everything can be
marketed in the same way. The 1790 bible brought her a good penny, but she
couldn't get the one from 1900 to bring more than fifty cents. She donated
it to a local church, and here is where I am so proud of her. We can write
it off as a charitable deduction. Someone had written what they had paid
for the bible on the back cover. Susan converted that to 2001 dollars and
will use that for our tax deduction amount. I've already enrolled Susan in
tax lawyer summer camp this coming August.

There was some old large certificate written on heavy paper. The silly
thing wasn't even in English, so why would Mother keep it? Kenny used the
other side to keep track of the things he had sold. Waste not, want not.
When we were finished we put the paper in the recycling bin.

The kids put an old wedding dress from the 1870s in the washer to get the
stains out. It was terribly filthy. The worthless thing didn't even
survive the extra long cycle and the half-gallon of bleach. It's doubtful
we can even use it for cleaning rags.

The dress was in some kind of old trunk. Im not certain what it was for,
but it had a name stenciled on the front in huge letters along with the
name of a town. Susan give it a good coating of red paint and sold it as a
toy box.

The filing cabinets were emptied of their contents, as were the three
shelves of binders. Kenny got the bright idea to shred the paper and sell
it in bags as New Year's confetti. The file folders were too heavy to shred.

The baby did not react well to any of this. She cried and fussed almost
the entire time. Kenny thought she wanted tea, which made no sense to me
at all. As she cried, it sounded like she was saying "family tee." She
can't even talk yet and I think Kenny was hearing things. The baby does
not look exactly like my mother though, it's the oddest thing. The fussing
didn't stop until she spit up an entire bottle of strained prunes on my
junior high jeans, which we did find in the basement. They were ruined ---
it was the one real loss. Now my past has really been taken from me ---
magazines and all.

Charlene

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Whether you have a child like Charlene or not, have you thought about what
might happen to your genealogy collection upon your demis?

This thread: