Every September I like to remember the Steamboat Arabia, which sank in the Missouri River near Kansas City in September of 1856. Because the river changed course over the next hundred or more years, it was discovered in a cornfield in 1988, and a wonderful museum was opened for the preserved artifacts in 1991. I have visited the museum every time I am in Kansas City, and as I walked through the exhibits my imagination soared. What was life like back in that time? This was the premise for "Hold On To the Past", a romantic time travel I wrote about being on board the Steamboat Arabia during its last fateful voyage.
Years ago, I went to an auction with my sister. I have to preface this by saying I'm afraid of going to auctions. You see, I talk with my hands (not sign language; just gesturing) and waving your hands around at an auction can get you in trouble. Plus I never understand exactly what the auctioneer is saying and worry that if I bid and think it's for 50 cents, it might actually be for 50 dollars. So while I go, it is with hands tucked under my arms or in pockets, and I have my sister bid for me.
The best auctions are estate auctions, as I am always on the lookout for old things. I don’t collect antique furniture, china or Depression glass. I hunt for diaries, journals, old ledgers –written glimpses into the past. At this particular auction, I found baggies of old letters, written by a young man stationed in Europe during WWI. In addition, there was a small book with rules for enlisted men upon discharge. THIS is the world of antiques that interests me.
The downside was that I only had letters he had sent home to his family. I didn’t have the letters from Iowa that were sent to him. Even so, I came to know this man and some of his family. For one example, he did not particularly like the young man his sister was spending time with. His life, and who knows how many stories, lie within the words he penned over one hundred years ago.
At another auction the same sister bid on and won a quilt top. When she spread it out at home and we took a closer look, we found it had been hand stitched, not machine sewn. At that time quilting was my sister’s thing, not mine, but then she said “I wonder who made this quilt and why. I wonder where they lived and how they managed.”
As a writer, that was something I could get my teeth into. Her simple statements led me to write a story I called “The Christmas Quilt” about a quilt, made for a daughter having a child at Christmas, and how that quilt was handed down through the generations.
Auctions are good for the creative process in different ways. Studying the items for sale can give you a sense of life as it was played out for a family in a particular community. (Realizing that a rural community will possibly sell farm implements right along with the family dishware.) It can give you a feel for the value people placed on particular items.
And more than even the items up for auction, the participants at these festivities can provide you with a wealth of background and characterization. Everything from facial expressions to stances can give away a person’s interest in an item being auctioned. If you watch, you’ll soon discover who is a frequent participant and buyer; who knows who and who knew the deceased owner of what is being auctioned. Even more important, if you’re the auctioneer (or a writer looking for inside information), see if you can discover a bidder’s “tell.”
I went to a cattle auction once with my dad and throughout the entire affair, the auctioneers and helpers kept pointing and saying “yep”, “yep” but I never saw anyone raise a hand or their bid number. I particularly studied my dad, who was in the market for calves, but he sat there with his arms crossed over his ample stomach and never said a word. When I whispered my question, he said simply, “watch.” And then I saw it – the slight lift of a finger; a simple wink; the touch of a hat brim. It was a small town weekly auction, and I daresay the participants knew each other as well as their “tells”, but it was a game everyone participated in.
Many times instead of an auction, the remains of a family estate find their way to antique stores. Antiques by definition are items 100 years old or more, and too often their stories are lost through time. People live through tough times and must sell family possessions to have money for food. The very last great-grandchild of a family rooted in the community for hundreds of years dies, leaving no one to inherit the curio cabinet or the jelly glasses much less to pass down the stories behind such items.
Almost every town has an antique store or perhaps a mall, where several vendors have booths. While I enjoy looking at various items, I am dismayed to see things that I had as a child are now in antique displays! According to definition, I am not yet an antique. I prefer to consider myself a collectible, or perhaps like a fine wine – I am vintage.
Barb Baldwin
