We're on Week 49 of 2024's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge and the topic is one of my favorites: "Handed Down." I have many family heirlooms. This is my most recent acquisition.
“What the f-- is that!?!?!” asked Alex in abject horror. He stared at the picture I placed in the back of our Honda Odyssey. Three wide-eyed cats stared up at him from the dusty picture frame.
A grin broke out across my face. I know my husband, and his reaction was everything I expected. “It was hanging in my grandmother’s house, and when I saw it at Uncle Richard’s all these memories came flooding back. He told me I could have it.”
“Okaaayyyyy,” he said slowly, “but what are you planning to do with it?”
“I figured I’d hang it in our bedroom. They can watch you while you sleep,” I teased. “I’ll put some of my creepy dolls on a shelf underneath so they can all watch you when you sleep.” Alex tolerates my doll collection but isn’t a fan of my “creepy dolls” with their glazed, staring eyes. He’s no great lover of cats either.
“Nooooooo!” he yelled in mock-horror. “But seriously, Jules, what are you going to do with this thing?”
“I don’t know. I’m putting it up somewhere, I just don’t know where yet. I needed it,” and that’s true. I did.
The last few weeks I’ve been repainting, cleaning, and organizing inside the house. I have plans to create an ancestor wall filled with pictures and framed bit of things – a doily that my great-grandmother Bernadette crocheted, the christening gown my mother and her siblings all wore – that sort of thing. I swear I missed my calling as an archivist. All these family possessions trickle down to me, and I love them, whether they’re odd and random bits of worthless junk, or truly beautiful, treasured heirlooms.
While cleaning and reorganizing my China cabinet where I keep many beautiful heirlooms, like the dish that belonged to Alex’s grandma Anya, or the punch bowl my grandparents received as a wedding gift, it hit me that I have nothing – and I mean absolutely nothing – that belonged to my grandmother Helen. And that bothered me. Shouldn’t a granddaughter have something that belonged to her grandmother? A ring, a picture, a knickknack?
Fast-forward a couple weeks later. I was in Maine visiting Uncle Richard and noticed this picture propped up on the floor. “That’s the chalk drawing by Al Ball I was telling you about,” he said. It was like a core childhood memory unlocked and scents, images, and feelings rushed in. I could smell my grandmother’s house and feel the rough fabric of her mid-century modern sectional beneath my hands as I sat in her living room as a child. These cats were on one of her walls. I remember staring into those large, haunting eyes, and loving that picture with my whole heart the way only an animal-obsessed little girl can. When I was a kid, I used to think the big gray one was Smokey, my dad’s favorite cat, and the kittens were her babies. Uncle Richard saw that I loved the picture, was surprised I remembered it, and let me take it home.
I had no idea that it was drawn by someone my grandmother knew. Uncle Al and Aunt Agnes were dear friends of my grandparents. Al grew up in Amesbury, Massachusetts just like my grandfather, Fred, and came to Maine in 1930. His obituary says he worked for Biddle & Smart Company for 25 years, which was a manufacturer of carriages and later automobile bodies in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Fred worked there too, and maybe that’s where the men became friends. It was a bit of an odd pairing. Al was old enough to be Fred’s father, but maybe they bonded over their love of cars and the outdoors. Al and Agnes both lived in Mount Vernon, Maine for some time, as did Fred, and they eventually moved to Cumberland, close to Westbrook where Fred settled with Helen. Al was 89 years old when he drew this, and I think it was a gift for my grandmother’s 53rd birthday because the back says, “Al Ball, 89” and then “July 3, 1970” beneath it.
I love it. I love it for the memories it evokes and the fact that it is a bit unsettling and creepy. The cats have vacant, soulless eyes (if Alex is reading this, he’s saying, “That’s because cats have no souls!”). Uncle Richard says that Helen relished teasing my grandfather to get a reaction. If she were alive to see the way some people react to this picture, we’d exchange a mischievous look, our matching blue-gray eyes would twinkle, and we’d dissolve into a fit of giggles as the cat-hating art critics around us questioned our taste and sanity.
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