Just can’t bear to part with certain family heirlooms…even if they are more junk than heirloom? That’s a subject Lexington author Lisa Tracy tackles in her new book, “Objects of Our Affections: Uncovering My Family’s Past, One Chair, Pistol and Pickle Fork at a Time.” Tracy, who lives in the home her grandfather built, inherited, along with her sister, generations of family heirlooms, some valuable, some just sentimental.
Tracy appears in Roanoke this Saturday at noon, at the Roanoke Main Library branch, to talk about her book. She traveled halfway around the world to answer the question: what do possessions, large and small, mean to people? Much of the Tracy family memorabilia comes from decades of military service.
“One of the things I hope people might do if they read this book is to think about their own objects and their own affections,” said Tracy. “They might get brave and tell their own stories. Pass it on to somebody – don’t let the stories get lost.” Tracy tells the story behind many of the family mementos she inherited, and suggests others might have stories to tell about what they possess as well.
Tracy and her sister had to decide what to keep and what to put out on the curb for bulk pickup. An old Chippendale sofa, for example, might have had some monetary value, but meant more on sentimental grounds. “That was where my mother would lie and read at night. Or where we would sit [and] do homework.”
Her advice for those in possession of family heirlooms, even those that may not have any monetary value, is that “they may be treasured anyway.” Those towels you bought at Wal-Mart could become a tale by the time you get home. “To acquire an object is to start a story,” said Tracy. “We are a story-telling animal. We need to tell our stories.”
Leave stories for your children and maybe you don’t need to leave “as much stuff behind,” notes Tracy. “Don’t hang on to everything.” She and her sister wound up auctioning off many of those heirlooms, a process Tracy called liberating in many ways, if somewhat painful. Those who bought items “were already putting their stories into the stuff,” by the times they hauled it out to their cars.
“In the end,” says Tracy, she and her sister “became even closer to their family tree by going through the whole process of shedding some of those goods.” “Objects of Our Affections,” from Bantam Books, could be required reading for all those packrats and hoarders out there. Tracy will share some of her stories this Saturday (March 27) at noon, at the Roanoke Main Library on Jefferson Street.
By Gene Marrano [email protected]