The cracker jar

I haven’t seen it in fourteen years, not since I wrapped it carefully and stashed it in a heavy moving carton. Last night I dreamed of it − a piece of china, maybe porcelain, maybe not. My grandfather gave it to my grandmother for a wedding anniversary. They lived on a farm in Minnesota where hard work was the unquestioned ethic, never spoken of, simply assumed.

It is a cracker jar, about twelve inches tall, shaped vaguely like a swirly tree trunk, flared at the bottom, the cover a cap with an inch-deep rim. The pattern is dark blue on a white background, a delicate tracing of flower-like shapes that seem to be shadows cast on the rippled surface. Delicate tracings of gold accent the jar’s shoulders and the edges of the cover.

It has always been a favorite of mine because I have never seen another even remotely like it and I have always thought it lovely.

Part of its appeal is that it is enigmatic. Along about 1900 my grandfather, Martin Holmes, hitched up his team and drove the wagon to town, where his calloused farmer hands picked up this fragile bit of beauty. He bought it and took it home to place in the calloused hands of Emma Holmes. I see her wiping those hands on her apron and opening her gift. Did she think it a foolish expense? It seems too lovely to grace an oilcloth-covered table next to the woodstove. This jar should adorn a mahogany sideboard in a spacious town house where it would enjoy frequent dustings from a uniformed maid.

Did Martin’s gift represent love or express emotions that he didn’t feel comfortable voicing? Emma suffered severe diabetes and besides bearing two living daughters she had delivered two dead sons weighing twelve and fourteen pounds. They were too large to survive the birth process which nearly killed Emma, too. Without today’s counseling resources and communication workshops, how did Martin and Emma deal with such tragedies?

Martin died when I was only six years old and Emma when I was about twelve. I didn’t know them intimately; we lived in Michigan and visited only once a year. Their life, to me, is mostly imagined. I see them working without letup on a farm that provided no room for luxuries.

And yet, there was the cracker jar. In 1996 I moved to Michigan from California. Not everything could make the move, so I packed the cracker jar and other treasures in a large carton, sending it to my daughter’s home in Washington State. It lies there, untouched, under the eaves. Before packing the box I photographed all its contents in groups. I glued the photos onto lined paper and wrote brief histories of each item, arrows pointing to their places in the photos. To read what I wrote is to raid my family’s stories. The assortment of vases, serving bowls, cut glass and silver was part of the lives of great grandparents, grandparents and my own life, including gifts from my children.

Will anyone in years to come know these stories? Will anyone be interested? They are my treasures. Is it fair to impose them on people who might not care and who certainly will not feel the emotional connection to them that I feel?

Maybe that is not what it is all about. Maybe these lovely things have already served their purpose. They have linked me to long-ago people, made them real for me. Over the years when these things were in my house they were a constant reminder of who I was and where I came from. To touch them was to touch my family members, no matter how long they had been gone.

Whatever role these things play in the future is not up to me. When the box is unpacked, I would like whoever opens it to enjoy looking at each one and then feel free to do with them as they like without guilt. They won’t be killing Mom or Grandma if they don’t cherish them.

Mom and Grandma – Grandpa, too – will be just fine. We all had our chance to enjoy our treasures. That was our right, as it is the right of future generations to gather and enjoy theirs.