In the back of my mind, I'm balancing this weighted question coming from a 14 year old boy that I hardly know. I asked him if he knew anything about the history of the containers or what purpose they served.
He responded that his sisters put things in them as if they're planning their weddings and future homes. The girls were pre-teens at the time. He continued to tell me his understanding of the purpose. It was an old tradition that girls do, that boys don't understand. Planning a home for the future when you don't know who you'll marry or when, or for him anyway, the reason why. He did know that his middle sister now owned my "Hope Chest" from my youth, and that fascinated him.
He said, "Now I can put a face with the name, when she talks about Aunt Judy's Hope Chest, I know that's you."
I've never lived close to my sister's daughters or their children, so this was a great honor to spend time with my great nephew, and to hear his life philosophy at 14; therefore I choked back tears.
Suddenly my mind was flooded with memories of the items that were stored in that chest before giving it to my niece in her teens. Followed by the distinct sinking feeling of watching my cedar chest go out the door once it was passed on to my 2nd niece's future "hope."
It had been my mother's the middle girl of 5), and now my older sister's second daughter was inheriting it. (Keeping it in the line of the middle daughter.) My niece had given it to her middle daughter. When there are 4 generations involved it's pretty emotional. It is just a piece of furniture to the big brother, though.
My mother had received the "Bluebird" brand hope chest in her teens. Before meeting my Dad she had stored treasures and items she would take into her own home some day.
The one piece of furniture that had been in every home I lived in as a child, over time contained my first silver place settings, collected during college. The bank was giving out a place setting with each $25.00 deposit into a savings account. Some of my sewing projects, like place mats, hand made napkins, napkin rings. I kept a diary and a scrapbook as a teenager, and snapshots of Russ when we were dating, a sewing kit, and a few knitting needles.
I had some of my own baby items, my one bronzed shoe, my hospital identity bracelet made from letter beads. In time a handmade quilt from Russ's grandmother, a wool blanket from the army. When Russ returned from overseas, knowing wool would get moths, I put it in there (with moth balls, too), it stunk so bad, we never used the blanket. Eventually the chest contained baby clothes that were treasures, our cake knife from the wedding, pictures of Russ as a child, the decorations from our cake topper, and our wedding and our babies' pictures.
I became aware of my nephew's talking as it interrupted the memories racing through my brain. He was explaining to the other passenger in the SUV how the process works. This boy was a few years younger and he didn't have sisters, he had never heard of a hope chest and he was clueless.
This is where the conversation got very interesting.
My great nephew talked about his 14 year old version of the difference between boys and girls. "Boys just plan on getting a career, what job they will do some day, and get outside and do constructive stuff, but girls dream of being wives and mommies and learn crafts, and decorate their rooms over and over, then pack and unpack their "Hope Chest. "
"Yuk", said the younger boy. "How can you think about marriage and babies ... my friends think that's dumb."
The older boy reassured him that in a few years he'll be thinking more about his future, but the younger was not convinced. After about 10 minutes into the explanation of why girls are so different from boys, we both noticed our younger helper was asleep in the back seat. (Too funny - he simply was not ready for this conversation.)
It's important to close with this side note. After giving my cedar chest to my niece,
I got a call from my mother-in-law (about 10 years ago). "Do you have room for my 'Hope Chest.'"
We looked at it and realized it was nearly identical to the one I had given away.
It sits at the foot of my bed to this day,
It sits at the foot of my bed to this day,
and now - I have a granddaughter.
Full of HOPE!!
Full of HOPE!!
Judy Cockrum
The collection of a trousseau was a common coming-of-age rite until approximately the 1950s; it was typically a step on the road to marriage between courting a man and engagement. It wasn't always collected in a special chest, hence the alternative UK term bottom drawer, which refers to putting aside one drawer in a chest of drawers for collecting the trousseau undisturbed, but such a chest was an acceptable gift for a girl approaching a marriageable age. Such chests may have been inherited from their mother or female relatives. They are still a popular gift from woodworking fathers.
Contents of a "hope chest" or "glory box" included typical dowry items such as clothing (especially a special dress), table linens, towels, bed linens, quilts and occasionally dishware. As a bride would typically leave home on marriage, hope chests were sometimes made with an eye to portability, albeit infrequently. A 'bridal chest' was given to a bride at her wedding, by her husband, and so is not a 'hope chest' in this sense.
- Large decorated and showy chests, forming part of dynastic marriages in 15th and 16th century Italy. These were prized displays of wealth, of even more value than their contents.
- These are tall wardrobe-like chests with double doors. These are larger than most hope chests, intended for regular service in the home after marriage, and so were constructed as to partially dismantle for transport.[1]
- American settlers
- The peak of the hope chest as folk art came with the waves of European immigrants to America. Many of these, from Scandinavia to the Northern Midwest and Germans in Pennsylvania, had long traditions of plainly constructed chests with extensive painted decoration.
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