We’re moving! After almost 38 years in one house, we will be moving to a smaller home in a few months. Oh, my. We have an attic and basement full of the accumulation that comes with raising a family and losing grandparents and parents over decades. I’m trying to balance the desire to hold on to family memories and my readiness to be less tied to generations of material things. It’s more than a little overwhelming.

Tucked into all this, there are boxes of surprises. Things my mother packed in the Hartford Courant’s January 5, 1976 edition before a move. Two moves later she put boxes in our attic in 1995, saying “These don’t belong to you,” and she never touched them again. I’ve started unwrapping them and I’m finding finds.

Mind you, the goal here is to pare down, deaccession, simplify. But So. Much. Stuff.

If you’re reading this you already know that I’m enthralled by family stories and the things that remind us of those stories. But the sheer volume has to go. So, as I go through this tender process, I’m going to share an object and its story now and then.

The tea cart pictured above was bought by my grandmother about 1945. My mother’s family had lived in Beirut, Lebanon, and moved to the United States when World War II ended. I remember the cart in their little house in the woods in Dover, Massachusetts throughout my childhood. A silver tea service that had belonged to Granny’s mother, Mary (Hill) Mills, sat on it.

My grandfather gave my grandmother a budget for the new household they were setting up in New Hampshire. The figure he told her was their modest total household budget for the year, but apparently Granny misunderstood. She bought a houseful of furniture, spending every bit of their year’s funds. I have no idea how they sorted that out, but the furniture stayed.

After moving with my mum several times, the sweet tea cart has been collecting dust in my basement for several years. I’m thrilled with how it glows now, but I don’t have a spot for it when we move. It’s headed to Circus Lane, a friend’s antiques and vintage shop in search of a new home.

I’d never noticed the little drawer. I hope its new owner does, because I’m going to leave them a note with its story.