A Blonde's Perspective - Pieces of our past

By Jan Stadtherr

Reconnecting with memories from my past has been an obsession for me in the past few months. Nostalgia is a bittersweet emotion that involves remembering the past with pleasure and sadness. But nearly everyone experiences it, especially us, the elderly.

After tunneling my way through my brother’s house and up the old rickety steps to the upstairs, I enjoyed the world of past for several hours. My brother Jim, who passed away in May, lived for over 40 years in the 1910 Finnish square-log house where our father was raised with his six siblings. In an attempt to clean the hoarded house, family members dug through the dusty boxes of treasures, junk, and garbage and brought to me the things that might be of sentimental or monetary value. It was a blast to the past!

Jim was a very private, single man who hoarded everything. I knew there were many items from my childhood that were stored in the house, but I know he would have said no if I had asked to go upstairs as he would have been embarrassed of the mess. As we cleaned out, masks and gloves were worn to protect us from the dust and dirt along with thousands of mice droppings. These critters were heard scratching as we rummaged and disrupted their homes.

Opening a small drawer in the foot-powered Singer Sewing machine, my daughter was excited to find a mother mouse and her new-born hairless babies. Kim and her husband brought the little family outside and carefully placed them near the foundation of the house, where they would probably find shelter within the house again.

My goal was to find my mother’s dark green wedding dress worn in 1937 and my two tap dance costumes from first and second grade, which my mom had made in the ‘50s. I knew they had been stored upstairs for years, but after many hours of scavenging, the treasures were not found. The only remnants were the wristlets from both dance costumes (Candy Cane Kids and the Showoffs) that no longer fit around my wrists. An old Army trunk held several of mom’s dresses from the ‘30s and ‘40s and other vintage pieces of clothing including my old can-cans.

I was excited to find my red and white phonograph that played only one record at a time. Memories of the record player floated back to my 13th birthday and also when I played the free plastic and paper records that were on the outside of Wheaties cereal boxes. Remember? My favorite tune was the “Three Little Fishies.”

It was fun going through many old dusty photos of the past that were taken before my time. There was a photo taken at the J.B. Littlebeerg Studio of my grandmother, Lisi, whom we called Mummo, Finnish for grandma. The young woman stood stoically and stared back at me. As in most old photos, there was no smile. There was no date on the back of the photo but her name was written. Lisi Alm Lahti was a mail-order bride who married my grandfather, Mikko (Mike) Lahti, a gentleman (I hope) who died several years before I was born. A nice surprise was to find Grandpa Mike’s U.S. citizenship certificate signed in July 1900.

One of the grandsons found Jim’s old scrapbook buried under boxes which had his name inscribed on the cover. The yellowed pages were falling out, many which held birthday cards, photos, many pictures he had drawn. A swatch of his blonde hair from his first haircut was also wrapped in wax paper and displayed in the book.  I never knew he had the book and I wonder if he ever looked at it later in life. My scrapbook has moved with me where ever I have lived. Perhaps I should reminisce with it again...

As we grow older, it’s easy to feel like the world moves on too fast. But sometimes, tucked away in a forgotten drawer or a dusty shelf, we find pieces of our past that remind us who we were — and still are.