One of the few drawbacks of living in Paris is the feeling of being separated from your roots.
I don’t mean family, who can almost always visit or be visited. I mean not being in the place where most of my cultural references were formed. Instead, I live where aging rock singers, and old TV shows, and even snack foods of the 1960s, are largely unfamiliar.
Maybe that’s why artifacts from my childhood have so much meaning for me. Like the antique roll-top secretary that stood in my parents’ Ohio living room for almost 50 years. It was a fixture of their lives, starting when they brought it home from an auction when I was 11 or 12 and continuing to their 2013 downsizing and move to Fort Collins, Colorado. With golden wood and graceful proportions, the secretary was the loveliest piece of furniture they had.
When my mother transferred into memory care last year, it went into her storage unit. (That’s the bottom half behind the file cabinet.)
And there it sat. My sister Christine, who lives in Fort Collins, didn’t have room for it. I badly wanted to move it to Charlie’s and my house in Staunton, Virginia. But how? Moving companies said they would have to charge a full truckload price for it — $25,000, say. That put a pall on my dream.
And then Maddy, a young family friend, came to Paris and got in touch. Delighted, we invited her and her partner, Mike, over for dinner. He mentioned that he owned a custom-furniture company near Denver. It created beautiful pieces that, I realized later, must have to be shipped one by one.
A few months after that dinner, I contacted Mike to see if he might have any shipping advice. He offered, incredibly generously, to build a crate for the secretary and get a quote from a shipping company he used. When it came, the price was right. I just needed to get the piece to Broomfield, about an hour from Fort Collins.
I was going to be in Colorado in mid-January and decided to do it then. Some say it takes a village. This effort wasn’t quite of that magnitude, but an amazing team turned out to help.
First thing that morning, in 11 degrees Fahrenheit, my nephew Cameron (an amazing musician!) and a friend loaded it into Christine’s truck. They slid the two pieces onto blankets she’d provided and dragged them into place – a tight but perfect fit. Cam is in the truck bed.
I then drove back to Christine’s house, where my brother-in-law Brian tied the two halves down securely.
And away to Broomfield I went, getting lost only at the very end. Mike and his colleague had the pieces off the truck and onto the forklift in a jiffy. On top of the section on the floor is another item I shipped to Virginia that I’ll describe later.
I went back to Fort Collins and then Virginia. Mike built the crate and off it went.
A few days later, I got a call from Roanoke. My secretary was coming.
It wasn’t easy: Our house is on a steep hill and we are having gutter work done (or, actually, not having it done, but that’s another story.) There was no way the delivery people could carry the crate up the hill, especially through that nest of ladders and even if their big truck could have blocked traffic for that long.
Instead, I told them, come along an alley in back to the parking pad behind our house. But the truck couldn’t make it into the alley, so they had to trundle their cargo.
Their job was to drop and go, so I had hired another team to do the last stage. Brian and Randy uncrated the secretary, brought it into the house and set it up.
From there, all it took was a little cleanup.
I can’t describe how moved I was to see the secretary in my house. I opened every drawer and nook, running my hands over the wood and recalling what had gone in each place: Checkbook and check stubs in the sections of the big drawer, family photo albums stacked vertically in the hutch, bills and envelopes in the cubbies. The roll top stuck when I opened it in just the place I remembered.
And my nostalgia was enhanced by the other piece I shipped from the storage unit: a painting by the late Anne Culbert, a noted Southern Ohio artist and the mother of one of my best friends from childhood. My memories of Anne are as old and vivid as those of the secretary, and I had loved this image for many years. I’d packed it in bubble wrap and begged Mike to find a way to get it into the crate. He did.
When I look at the secretary now, I see not only my memories of the past in Ohio, but a reflection of my lives since then: Virginia, in the house we have owned since 2018. Colorado, where my father lived his final years and where my mother remains. And Paris, where the connection was sparked that made all this possible.
Hi Anne,
Wonderful story about rescuing your family’s roll top secretary. I went through a similar saga to save an antique corner cupboard filled with family memories. It now has a warm comforting presence in my dinning room and makes me smile every time I unlatch the glass doors to retrieve a wine coaster.
Hope all is well with you. I enjoy periodically reading your posts and appreciate your thoughtful perspectives on life and Paris living.
Take care,
Sharon
Sharon, I hope I get a chance to hear your story some day, I’m so glad you like this one.
That is a beautiful piece of furniture and a beautiful story as well.
Many mercis, Nancy. I hope you can see it ‘live’ one of these days.
So glad you were able to make this happen. It is beautiful piece and fun to have the memories.
Thanks so much, Lisa!
Anne, I’m so glad you got this treasured piece to its new home with you in Staunton. I get it.
Many thanks, Zack, I hope you get a first-hand look soon.
Anne-
What a gorgeous piece of family history! I read this with an odd sense of connection, since I can picture the delivery challenges quite specifically. I was made aware of your newsletter by my brother, who’s one of your neighbors. Knowing my affinity for Paris, he felt I’d enjoy it, as I have. I’m reading this in the Marais, where I come annually with a small group of friends for a short visit.
I must say, your family heirloom looks as if it were designed for that very spot … it has surely come ‘home’.
I’ll look forward – as always – to your next newsletter.
A bientôt,
Alice (Arnold) Schielke
I appreciate that so much, thank you! That hill in front of our house must look familiar to you.
Lovely. Someday I’ll tell you the sago of my mom’s piecrust table!
Thank you! I love it when people respond with their own stories.
What a lovely journey for this piece of your childhood.
Thank you so much!
Reading this was like rubbing a genie’s lamp which caused the other furniture and other rooms in your house on Sunnyside to materialize, then the people, then summer light filtering into the dining room, snatches of conversation, laughter. I’m glad you and the secretary were reunited. When you come to DC, please stop by for a meal or to spend the night.
Thank you! And yes, I can’t think of the secretary without thinking of the room it was in and the many wonderful people who entered it.
Anne,
What a beautiful piece of furniture and a beautiful and touching story !!!
Being very sentimental, I had much of my mother’s furniture – my father had died 19 years before she did – shipped over in the mid-1990s from Nashville to Paris for something like $2,500. It was worth it – literally not only sentimentally – because up to age 50, I was still living somewhat like a student in the apartment that I have always shared with others.
I’m glad you liked the post, Kate. And yes, I have heard from so many people who have wonderful stories to tell about the sentimental pieces in their lives.
Thanks, Kate. Having our sentimental stuff around us is worth the expense, right?
I’m totally smitten with the desk and can understand why you wanted to keep it in the family. It’s fabulous, as is your story.
Thanks so much, Caroline!
Anne, great story – as always, using your reportorial powers and your personal inspiration. A great process story that literally brings it home!
Aw, thanks so much. You must come see it!
What they said. Lovely and congratulations. Didn’t know your mom was in memory care. Hope she’s well and comfortable.
Many thanks! Yes, fairly happy as those thing go, at 94 that’s about as good as it gets.
Delightful!
Merci!
Anne, what a delightful story to follow. From Colorado to Virginia and it looks perfect in its new venue, along with the painting. Enjoy and thank you for sharing.
Thanks so much, Dorothy!
What a vivid vicarious account… Isn’t it amazing that this beautifully-proportioned, much treasured “secrétaire” has found the perfect niche… Some day (“the later, the better”), the next generation will find it equally moving…
Thank you, Georgina! Let’s hope the younger generation is interested!
How could they NOT be… In an age of “storytelling” this post speaks volumes 🙂
Lovely piece, Anne. You are so lucky to have a house in the States. When I left, it was forever which means that the family silverware and china that I have here in France are constant and wonderful reminders of my youth in the States.
Thank you, Harriet! We have a few precious pieces in Paris too, as you say they are connections to our past.
Anne, when Mark visited Charlie in Staunton, he made a point of checking out the secretary. It was obvious from your photo that it nestled perfectly in the space. Mark reported that it looked wonderful there. Peter Scheer’s post that he was glad Maddy and Mike were able to help made me sit up and think, oh, that Maddy! Lovely how everything came together. It wasn’t easy for you to execute.
Thanks, Lisa! I had such an incredible team. So much could have gone wrong and didn’t, too.
Anne,
What a lovely story – I totally understand your connection to this beautiful secretary, and the wonderful painting of Jane and her mother! I’m also very attached to childhood and family memories – so glad
you could bring this one home.
“the other Anne”
Thank you Anne! I’m not sure either one of us “other,” we are just really cool!