My paternal grandfather was born in Odessa, Russia and was carried to the U.S. as an infant. Growing up on the Lower East Side, he earned a scholarship to Cooper Union College and became an engineer. I still have his school notebook with his amazingly precise hand-drawn engineering diagrams.
Grandpa established a successful engineering business in 1912 at age 19 (incorporated in 1931) which was continued through 3 generations of engineers until sold by my older brother, Jeff @OrmontUS, in 2015 (?). At age 35, Grandpa married his brilliant 18-year-old bookkeeper. She lied and said she was 21. He lied and said he was 28. My grandfather worshiped the ground my grandmother walked on until his death at age 73.
My grandparents bought a large duplex house in Brooklyn in the mid-1930s. They loved to socialize and entertain. Like many of the pre-1960s generation they liked to dress in style and set a beautiful table with damask, china, crystal and silver. Their upstairs apartment was beautifully decorated and always immaculate. Grandpa was always on the cutting edge and they had a TV set in the 1950s which had a 12" X 8" screen in a large box the size of a washing machine. The house had a full-size basement which gradually filled with obsolete items from previous decades.
My parents moved our family of 5 into the downstairs apartment of the duplex when I was in first grade (1959). My mother was an artist (and high school art teacher) and the walls were lined with her large oil paintings.
By the time my mother died in 2001, all 3 of us siblings had homes of our own which were fully supplied with stuff. The old house was in very good condition since my mother’s philosophy was to spend 10% of the value of the house every year in maintenance and upgrades. (It is not for sale but its Zillow value today is over $1.8 million.) After each of us took what we wanted from the house it was still fully furnished and crammed with stuff, including a large steamer trunk from my grandparents’ 1929 trip to Paris, a large collection of single-sided 78 RPM records, etc., etc.
I was depressed and couldn’t handle it. Jeff sold the house to an immigrant family with everything still in it. I hope they sold the stuff and made a bundle. They were a Pakistani family who improved the house by adding a porch in front with a Pakistani design.
I am interested in our family history so I took items that belonged to our ancestors, such as my great-grandmother’s ESL notebook and a heavy gold charm bracelet that has a charm for each of my grandmother’s grandchildren.
Also some beautiful silver serving pieces that simply aren’t used by the younger generation. An example is this sterling silver Gorham pitcher that my grandmother told me was a wedding present to them from the Governor of North Carolina. (Not documented.)
It bothers me to think that these beautiful historic pieces could be melted down for scrap but I don’t know who would treasure them after I’m gone.
I’m not a hoarder. I try to keep my collection of family history, art objects and furniture down to the size that would fit into a one-bedroom apartment if I should live long enough to downsize into one. (I do have plenty of stuff that I would give away without a qualm.) We currently live in a 2 bedroom ranch house with a furnished cabin on our property. I don’t want to be upset if I should have to give 99% of everything away. I refuse to have a storage unit – if something isn’t being used it shouldn’t be kept, much less money spent on hoarding it.
My situation isn’t unique.
Americans Buy a Crazy Amount of Cheap Stuff. It’s Costing Us Dearly.
Our mountain of clutter remains, even if tariffs bring an end to the era of low-cost goods
By Dalvin Brown, The Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2025
…
It is easier than ever to buy things, thanks to the rise of online shopping. But it is physically and mentally taxing to get rid of them. The result is overflowing basements and rented storage units. Eventually, if it doesn’t end up in the hands of new owners, it is tossed or left for the children to deal with.
“We’re battling a tsunami of stuff, and the stuff is winning,” said Julie Hall, founder of The Estate Lady, an estate-clearance company. …
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Maybe this would be a good time to go through my closets and donate a bunch of stuff.
Wendy
