The Gift of Family Heirlooms

Biba Kayewich

What’s so important about a bed, a nightstand, and a dresser? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

I’m thinking of a particular bedroom set, one that has been in our family for several generations now. My father slept there as a child, then as a teenager. His father and grandfather did, too.

This bedroom set is made of solid wood with a glossy, cherry-colored finish. The spokes on the twin bed’s headboard and footboard have a pattern of bumps like an abacus. A large oval mirror rests inside two similar pillars atop the dresser. The set sits in the guest bedroom of my house, waiting for my child to graduate from her crib to a “real bed,” at which point it will become the silent backdrop for a new collage of childhood memories, just as it was for me. And my father before me. And my grandfather. And my great-grandfather.

That’s the power of heirlooms. They bridge decades, maybe centuries. They’re the loose threads of someone else’s story—someone you love and owe much to—that you take up and begin to weave anew, incorporating them into your own story.

The stories connected with that bedroom set connect me to prior generations. I wonder what moments of growth that bedroom set witnessed over the years. Each of these—father, grandfather, great-grandfather—grew from boys to men in a room fitted out with these furnishings. Year after year, that dresser held their clothes, which over time became larger. That nightstand held their trinkets and toys—maybe an old rusty pocket knife, a yo-yo, a favorite book. That bed held them when they slumped on it with the total abandon unique to a boy who has played all day in the sun, or of the young man who studied late for an exam or worked after hours at the factory. It cradled their dreams, both waking and sleeping.

Did my father lie in that same bed as a teenager and think about his future? About what he wanted to do and become? Did some vague inkling of my own existence cross his mind? Did he, too, feel sweet anguish as his mind turned to his first crush or the quickening of his heart as he looked forward to the big game on Friday night?

Whatever the case, I know one thing for certain. I’ll never get rid of that bed and that dresser and that nightstand. The top of the dresser once held my legions of Roman toy soldiers; I hope someday it will be the foundation for my own sons’ battles and conquests. These pieces of furniture are permanent heirlooms for my family. They carry memory, tradition, and meaning.

Old Hats and Memories

I also have a few fur hats that belonged to my other grandfather. He was an avid hunter, a man of unending energy, and when I was a child, he told us hunting tales—about the bear that almost mauled his brother, the jeep that almost went over the cliffside, or the mare’s milk he drank in Mongolia. A South Dakota farm boy who became a successful businessman and went on many hunting trips, my grandfather has, over the course of his lifetime, caught, killed, or grown enough food to feed several small towns.

The fur hats he gave me are warm and soft, with flaps that come down over the ears. Such protection against the cold would have been necessary, I suppose, when he was up in Alaska hunting moose or out pheasant hunting on a chill, wind-scoured South Dakota field in the autumn, with the yellowed grass sighing, and his breath made visible in the cold. Now, those same hats protect my head when I blow snow from my Wisconsin driveway.

These old hats were always a part of the many stories Grandpa told. They were a steady background presence, a boon to my grandfather when he turned his face against bitter winds and snow as he trudged through his many life adventures. Now, when I hold one of those hats in my hand, his stories spring to life. They become real. And they’re a part of my story, too. We’re linked across decades by these little flaps of fur.

Tangible and Intangible

Heirlooms suggest that some things remain the same despite life’s transience. Like a solid bed or a warm hat. Or the struggles of childhood and adolescence; circumstances shift with time, but the journey of the heart takes every young person through similar paths of first loves and losses, friendships, dreams of the future, hard partings, disappointments, battles, challenges, and sorrows, as he or she learns the delicate art of growing up.

All this should make clear that heirlooms are simple, timeless, and well-made objects. If the objects are not timeless, they’ll become irrelevant. But if they’re useful whatever their age and however the world changes, they’ll unite their owners, not just by a bond of sentimental remembrance but by a bond of shared experience. That’s what I experienced when I wore the same hat my grandpa wore and braved the same northern cold.

If an object is not well-made, it must eventually be thrown away and is therefore unlikely to become a true heirloom. Heirlooms endure. Even after all these years, the bedroom set looks brand new. It’s rock-solid. Permanent. Lasting.

I question whether modern tools, furniture, and clothing could be heirlooms because they’re so flimsy. They don’t last the way old stuff does. But you can still find such items here and there, if you don’t currently have a family heirloom and you want to acquire one if you wish to start your own heirloom tradition. Find the old, tried-and-true objects.

Heirlooms speak to us of durability, of who we are and where we came from. They remind us of what doesn’t change. Their most crucial purpose might be to remind us of the intangible heirlooms we’ve received from our ancestors: traditions, customs, beliefs, and principles. They’re a physical manifestation of the values our family holds most dear, of the hard-won lessons that have been passed down.

When I think of the men who owned my heirlooms, my mind returns to who they are (or were). I think of their good example, strength of character, high moral principles, endurance and tenacity, self-sacrifice for their families, and love of truth.

These too are heirlooms—the most permanent kind. All I can do is handle them with the love and respect they deserve and pass them on to the next generation. And the next. And the next.

Just like that bed and those hats.