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“You mustn’t throw them away. Let me have them.”
― Diane Samuels, Kindertransport: A Drama

“She loved old things. The brown-brick place was a survivor of the 1907 earthquake and fire, and proudly bore a plaque from the historical society. The building had a haunted history- it was the site of a crime of passion- but Tess didn't mind. She'd never been superstitious.
The apartment was filled with items she'd collected through the years, simply because she liked them or was intrigued by them. There was a balance between heirloom and kitsch. The common thread seemed to be that each object had a story, like a pottery jug with a bas-relief love story told in pictures, in which she'd found a note reading, "Long may we run. -Gilbert." Or the antique clock on the living room wall, each of its carved figures modeled after one of the clockmaker's twelve children. She favored the unusual, so long as it appeared to have been treasured by someone, once upon a time. Her mail spilled from an antique box containing a pigeon-racing counter with a brass plate engraved from a father to a son. She hung her huge handbag on a wrought iron finial from a town library that had burned and been rebuilt in a matter of weeks by an entire community.
Other people's treasures captivated her. They always had, steeped in hidden history, bearing the nicks and gouges and fingerprints of previous owners. She'd probably developed the affinity from spending so much of her childhood in her grandmother's antique shop.”
― Susan Wiggs, The Apple Orchard

“My charge, then, in putting down my pen, and giving over this work to posterity, is this: Take the time. Take the time to preserve the stories, the photographs, the small mementos that mean so much. This is your legacy to future generations. Give it the attention it deserves. Your children and your grandchildren will thank you for it.”
― Laurence Overmire, One Immigrant's Legacy: The Overmyer Family in America, 1751-2009: A Biographical Record of Revolutionary War Veteran Capt. John George Overmire and His Descendants

“But when things were passed to you, you were supposed to pass them on to someone else eventually too.”
― Kate Milford, Greenglass House

“Cleaning and painting finished, the next target was the big ware press in the parlour. Out came delicate china which had been in the family for years. My mother's respect for the Stations weighed against her fear of breakage, but the Stations won every time. Once when a precious jug was broken she mourned it for days, telling us all how long it had been in the family. Finally, Dan, our part-time travelling farm worker, said, "Missus, if it was here that long it was time to break it." And that was the end of that.”
― Alice Taylor, To School Through The Fields

“It would be an existence rife with difficulties... but of a pleasurable kind, difficulties they could take pride in, possess, value, as one would a family heirloom.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“What the house kept us, we kept. The buttonhooks, the cotton gin advertisement, the letters, the filthy lady's glove, gnarled and frozen in a claw, all of it were framed under glass, in shadow boxes, displayed in the parlor by the guest book. We even managed to save the silvery gilt of wallpaper and the peacock frieze we found like a gift under the brown and orange daisy paper in the hallway. Lost objects in a house are like memories tucked in the gray folds of our brains. They will resurface. Eventually, they will come back.”
― Mindy Friddle, The Garden Angel

“Exciting, isn't it? The season? They're rare or unique breeds of plants and animals. Once all our tomatoes were like that. Before preservatives and supermarkets and this commercial food production hell we're living in. Breeds evolved in places based on one evolutionary principle: they tasted better. The point is not longevity or flawlessness. All of our vegetables were biologically diverse, pungent with the nuance of their breed. They reflected their specific time and space---their terroir.”
― Stephanie Danler, Sweetbitter

“If their story is lost, precious
family treasures are demoted to antiques. Knowing history is
the difference between selling them when you’re hard up for
cash or holding on to them at all costs.”
― Annie Eklöv, Help! My Room Exploded: How to Simplify Your Home to Reduce ADHD Symptoms

“The garden itself was enjoying the painted-on brightness of the day. The flowers were in full bloom--- the dramatic pink of the Duchess of Sutherland roses and the flesh-colored Madame Audots met Harriet's eye as she stepped out of the house. Flanking those stood the La Reines with their silvery undertones and the cabbage roses to the right. The cabbage roses, though they did not have a grand name, were Harriet's favorite. More layers inside one flower than she could even count. She inhaled the sweet smell of the Duchesses and watched as every last bloom turned to face her as she padded barefoot from the door onto the stone walkway, bordered by lush green moss. Satisfied that Harriet was content, the flowers resumed their nourishing tilt toward the sky. The stones were cool beneath her feet.”
― Chelsea Iversen, The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt