The first house I remember living in was a large brick duplex built in the 1880s. The house has two stories, a stone foundation basement and a full attic. The walls were so thick I could sit comfortably in the window and read a book while looking outside. The house had a cellar door and a rain barrel  and an apple tree much like the old song “Playmate, Come Out and Play with Me”. My brother and I played in the basement and even kept a box turtle (or two) down there that ate the bugs.

But the place I remember most was the attic. The second floor of the house had three bedrooms, mine was the smallest at the back corner of the house. My bedroom window opened onto the roof of the covered porch where I could climb out, sit on the roof and reach for apples on the tree that hung over the roof. My bedroom didn’t have a closet (I’m not sure if any of the other bedrooms did) but there was no wardrobe either. My clothes were kept on a clothes rack in the stairwell to the attic.

The attic was dusty and the floor was bare wood, but I remember it being a magical place where I could pretend to be anything I wanted with no pesky brothers to bother me. The best of all things in the attic was an old hump-back trunk that sat beneath the dormer window.  (This trunk is considered a “hump back” style based upon its dome shaped top and the placement of the wooden slats on the lid.) The sun would come through the window and brighten a rectangle on the floor. I’d play dress up in the clothes and shoes belonging to my mother that she’d stored inside the trunk and dance around in the sunlight. I was no longer a little girl then but Cinderella going to the ball.

We moved from that house in 1963 when Mom and Dad bought our new house. The trunk came with us and Mom kept it in the basement and stored quilts inside. After Mom died, my youngest brother ended up with the trunk. At one time he began restoring it, but didn’t get it completed. When he moved from one home to another, it eventually made it’s way to me.

In the midst of my basement reno, my ADD kicked in and I got distracted by this trunk. The bottom of the trunk is in really rough shape and is still covered with newspapers from 1959. The thing about these newspapers is I’m sure my mom put them there. I guess that’s why I leave them, all tattered and stained. It’s the only thing that exists that is still where my mom put it almost sixty years ago.

I decided to see if there was anything on the trunk that might give me some idea of when it was made or how old it was. On the metal brackets, I found the inscription “Pat July 9 72”.

I wasn’t sure what that referred so I turned to the god of all knowledge, Google, and put those exact words in the search field and this is what I found:

Antique Trunk restoration “pat, july, 9, 1872″…Made and sold in 1872 for middle class Americans. Sold out of the Sears catalog 146 years ago. https://steemit.com/antique/@gooseisland/antique-trunk-restoration-pat-jun-9-1872

(Post was from 2018.)
Wow, that means that this trunk is over 150 years old! A little further reading said that although this inscription said 1872, that did not necessarily mean the entire trunk was made in 1872, that was merely the date of the patent for the hinge. Other things I read dated the trunk about 1880.

I wish I’d asked my mother about this trunk, where she got it and what she knew about it. But unfortunately,  it didn’t matter to me at the time and now that it does, it’s too late. But my memories are the real treasures.