The Old Soul in an OId Profession of Acquiring Old Things - Loving all the Old Ghosts

 

Photo by Suzanne Currie

     There is a permeating scent of tall spring grasses and the helter skelter of wildflowers in the overgrown pasture of once, and the spent blossoms the old homestead lilacs still have a most alluring aroma, that for me is pleasantly and mindfully historic. Just like the old farmhouse I'm visiting today to attend an estate auction sale. The rattle of cars and trucks on the farm lane at this moment detracts from the peaceful setting with its leaning old birches and bulging evergreens and aromatic cedars most having existed at the time in the late 1800's when this Muskoka farm was being upgraded from its initial homestead modesty. A log cabin of a pioneer family long since eroded into earth where another stand of lilacs still thrives after all these years. Lilacs and Muskoka homesteads were commonplace. The colorful and hardy flowering trees made the hand-hewn log shelters look more attractive and the yards more civilized, in keeping with some of the home regions they had once belonged before arriving in the free land grant district of Ontario in the 1860's.

     I have spent thousands of hours in past years, hiking back to former homesteads and abandoned hamlets throughout Muskoka, both as a curious trespasser, and a keen historian with an old soul, interested in absorbing a period in our history I wish had been more intimately acquainted. I often spent spring afternoons digging through the debris of old homestead dumpsites, looking for interesting relics such as doll heads, which were numerous, and vintage glass bottles which seriously intrigued me. I got to know these folks by the garbage they discarded, and the useful items that were sent to the material burial ground that antique hunters like myself have come to cherish often for the visible wear they exhibit. I never dug in these pioneer farm dumpsites with any plan on making big-money discoveries, although I was always interested in making a discovery of what was called a "post hole account," which was the in ground safe, where a sealer jar full of money was buried for safe keeping. Many rural-ites did hide money below fence posts as the bank fees were pretty reasonable. And there were a lot of posts to use if you were so inclined. The problem of course, was when the depositor either became mentally incapacitated or passed-on without telling anyone else what fence post held the family wealth. Yes, it means there are still quite a few undiscovered post hole accounts yet to find, but as development moves further and further into the countryside, it's likely more will be accidentally uncovered. And a few skeletal remains as well, considering quite a number of loggers and homesteaders from the 1850's to late 1860's were buried in makeshift grave sites for matters of convenience. Many loggers did perish on dangerous river runs, and some were never recovered to be buried. Others were buried in open ground near where they had perished, many of them not having family to claim the remains. I fell into one during a riverside hike, near the Beaumont farm in Bracebridge, on the Muskoka River, and I have to tell you it was quite a scramble to save myself from an premature demise as it was caving in around me.

     I have had two advantages in my life, beyond the fact I apparently was born with an old soul, according to my mother Merle. To explain to our neighbors in Burlington, why her son kept scrounging through their weekly garbage, looking for salvageable treasures, she'd nod her head, shake it when looking back at me, and confess that I was a lot older than I looked. Centuries older. I never knew what she meant back then, but shortly before she passed away, confessed that she had always thought of me as having been a miracle of re-incarnation because of my love for history. My passion was to write about history, and as it would manifest later in life, authoring magazine feature stories about antiques and being an antique hunter. I graduated university with a degree in Canadian history, and was a founder of the Bracebridge Historical Society, so I guess that was the kind of evidence that added to what my mother had already believed of her strangely appointed son. I have always felt rather honored by that association, of being old of soul but still limber enough of health and spirit to enjoy the smooth ride of one's age without the pain and suffering of being three or four hundred years old. It's the reason I believe, I have so few contemporaries to chat with, and compare historical notes on my chosen profession of collecting old stuff. They don't get me and I certainly don't get them. I guess there really is an age difference. And a difference of opinion about why we collect in the first place. I've never been in this enterprise for the big financial gains, or really any significant gain other than the thrill of discovery and the joy of association. Money is certainly a part of the profession, in the nuts and bolts way of looking at business survival, but I could never be truly satisfied if there wasn't more reward than just a big pay day, or as some of my colleagues like to claim, "a really big score."

     At the auction this afternoon, there is a wide array of curiosities of heritage, antiques galore, and many unusual and intimate pieces that compel to re-position myself through the crowd to make closer examinations. There are times when coming upon a portrait, or soot covered landscape painting, worn and discolored antique quilts, soiled vintage clothing, well travelled dolls and toys, can make the old soul, the sentimental old coot, stop in his tracks with a deep gasp, when the heart and soul of the voyeur get that sense of lingering possession; the very real sentiment that these were profoundly cherished possessions of a family member of this old farmstead, who have not fully abandoned ownership despite the mortal reality of this day, and the auction call now reverberating in the tell tale cadence, as everything that is anything must be sold by sunset. I may not have seen a ghost, but I am all too familiar with the kind of enhanced former cherished keepsakes that carry the energy of the past, that will come with the subject relic as an unsuspected partner in the mystery of antiquity carried beyond the present tense. I have many stories about enchanted antiques to relate to readers in future stories. Suffice to say that most folks who would view these pieces might experience a pang of sudden nostalgia quite natural under the circumstances of an emotional reduction of a former household chronicle. Who can look at a neatly penned family record, being births, deaths and marriages, and not feel some heartache at the reality this heirloom is to be sold with the rest of the estate items, to folks like me, who have only minor knowledge of this homesteads former occupants. The same with the old photo albums with hundreds of protruding newspaper clippings and loose letters. I always find it heartbreaking to watch these estates being disassembled in this fashion, and I have for years, with my wife and partner in the history game, Suzanne, taken it upon ourselves to save these more intimate articles as happenstance curators, committed to saving important personal items from being either thrown out, or compromised by those who, for example, may have purchased a job-lot of items, (often done to speed up sales) and bought themselves extra pieces they have no use for; and that's where we have often come to the rescue to preserve family histories that very much deserve to be archived for the benefit of the community. Especially old letters and ephemera, including war time correspondence and notes relating to neighborhood and regional events and even calamities. Death notices in particular, on special cards issued by grieving families and undertakers at the time.

     I am an old fellow now, with sincerely old values and old reckoning when it comes to antiques and the history they have come to represent with quiet, artful dignity with their soft patina of time ingrained. I can't walk away from compelling pieces that in their own way, enhanced as they may be, without stopping to recognize the character heritage and why it has stopped me in my travels; to study upon it for a moment or two, as if I am an old soul who understands provenance and what is providential about what some see as just old junk ready for disposal. Our family takes stewardship of these pieces very seriously, and through our business, Birch Hollow Antiques and Curries Music, we do very much enjoy the opportunity to display our most unique and important pieces, and in the spirit of our profession, also connect kindred spirits to kindred articles, which we have been doing for long and long with wonderful results. We would like to keep it all; these treasures of the past, but alas we are limited by space and mortal capacity, but we do still love to put antiques into the hands of those who appreciate the connectedness with history, as intimate as a family bible and a Victorian mourning gown, with those we know have a parallel insight and sensitivity to what it all means - being in the present yet soulfully appreciative that all these pieces had former owners now deceased, and thus, with new ownership, the legacy of appreciation is thus extended, and as facilitators of this new union, we are pleased with our humble role.

     This was the perfect profession for an old soul, don't you think?