Two Old Chairs

Next Monday we move out of the parsonage and the next day move into our 'forever' home! Gary was recognized as a retired pastor by his conference of the United Methodist Church and also by the local church he has been serving. 42 years of service in an official capacity has ended.

We had a big sale this weekend and cleared out all our treasures. They found loving homes, which made me very happy. We had many antiques rescued and restored. We also had lots of rescued treasures that were shabby but comfy. Like the two brown chairs, shown below, that we bought for $10 each at a garage sale.

The chairs amid other things no longer with us

Our neighbor's mother had to give up her own house to move in with her daughter's family. Her treasures had to go. We looked at these chairs, 1984 chairs with a pineapple print on brown fabric, and she immediately ran to our side to tout their comfort. We bought them. She was so thrilled, and it was obviously not because she made a lot of money from their sale.

We loved those chairs! They were SO comfortable! We considered reupholstering them. It would cost $770 labor plus fabric. But our retirement home is a 1969 ranch, quite small, and we need small scale pieces. We had decided to decorate in Mid Century Modern.

We agonized over letting them go. We were selling the 1920s couch we upholstered in red velveteen, and the 1915 lamp with the silk beaded lamp shade. We were selling the treadle sewing machine with the Sphinx motifs. We even decided to part with the 1940s rocking horse that had served three generations of Bekofskes. But could we part with these shabby chairs?

We put the chairs in the sale and prayed that they did not sell. If they were still there at day's end, we'd assume it was 'meant to be' for us to keep them.

People flocked to the sale before we even had everything outside. Within an hour a man from a block away came. He has been restoring an 1898 house, intending to make it into a Bed and Breakfast. He needed old things for decor and for use.

His wife sat in the chairs! And they bought them right away. They were so comfortable, they said. They will be the third owners of these chairs, each owner won over by their comfort. They also bought the sewing machine, which will look lovely on display there.

We joked together that we'd have return and stay at their B&B to sit in those chairs again.

At day's end we were left with books, junk, and a Depression era berry bowl set. Everything had gone home with other people.

The silk beaded fringe lamp went for a fraction of what we paid for it at auction twenty years ago. But the woman loved it so, and her new (second marriage) husband was so sorry he could not afford it. We had enjoyed it for twenty years. It owed us nothing. They had $20. The lamp went home with them, the wife beaming with joy. There is a large migrant population in the county who work picking asparagus and fruit. They came looking for practical things, sprinklers and mops and towels. A gal loved the reverse painting on glass old window I painted a few years ago. I hardly expected anyone to care for it. I even sold oil paintings by Mom, my brother and myself. I tried giving away some small things, only to have quarters pressed into my hands. People are basically decent.

We made good money from the sale because we were selling nearly everything we had. We sold at give-a-way prices. People HUGGED me they were so happy. I was happy too, knowing that things I loved would give joy to another family.

So I learned the joy of letting go.

Our years in parsonages have included good times and bad times, loving and joyful people, and unhappy and sometimes mean people. It is time to let go of emotional baggage as we are letting go of the physical things we have carried. Trusting that we leave behind good memories, small tokens that will offer comfort like a comfortable old chair.

Lifetime Address Seventeen

In January of 1972 my folks bought this house, built in 1969. This is the Realtor photo of the house.

Notice the antenna for television reception? This week we had a 'dish' installed for satellite TV. Things change, but not too much! Only one house on the street still has the original gas light in the yard.

Dad planted trees. We had to take down some. But we still have a huge silver maple in back, as well as another towering pine tree.

In June of 1972 our wedding reception was held in the back yard of this house. I only lived here for about two weeks between college and my wedding.

Our son was born and my folks loved having a grandchild. Dad had an above ground pool. Before the days of central air conditioning it kept the family cool. Mom let him play with her pots and pans, and gave him decks of old cards. She had a baby swing in the tree. Our son loved to visit his Papa and Nana at this house.

Mom passed away in 1990. Dad had Non-Hodgkin s lymphoma and after consulting with my brother left us the house. Our son has lived here since he graduated from college.

So after 42 years I will live again in the house...for more than two weeks!

I am so busy clearing out my folk's stuff, making room for us to move in, I have little energy left over. Then a storm brought water in the basement. We didn't need that. So instead of a new kitchen we will have to waterproof the basement. It has to be done, as my sewing room has to be downstairs. We have taken down Dad's workbench to make room for my workroom. He worked with wood. I prefer fabric.

It will be many weeks before life settles down again.

Last Things

As we prepare to retire at the end of June we are facing the 'last things'. Today I was liturgist for the last time in a church pastored by my husband. I read from 1 Corinthians, Chapter 3. A lady told me it was the best Corinthians reading she'd ever heard. I hear Paul's voice in my mind. I am merely a conduit for his words.

The prelude today was a wonderful rendition of Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, one of the first hymns I learned after I joined my husband's denomination. I could hardly stem the tears when I stood to offer announcements and lead the call to worship.

We will spend this next week packing. It is the last time I will pack to move from a church parsonage, and God willing, we will not need to pack to move again for twenty or thirty years. We have lived in four states, eleven cities, ten parsonages. And we both moved once in childhood.

The sound of the tape ripping off the tape dispenser upsets our Kamikaze. She hates loud or unpredictable noises. But our Suki, who we adopted five and a half years ago, has already lived in three houses and she takes it in stride. They love our retirement home, and soon will forget they ever lived anywhere but there.

My husband has a vacation due and we are going across state to prepare our retirement home for moving in. Things that belonged to my folks, or that Dad bought after Mom's passing, will have to go to make room for our stuff. We carefully consider what we need and what we can give away, what goes into storage and what is sold. Heirlooms I have owned for twenty or thirty years are passed on to other family members. Antiques we collected but can't keep need new homes. We imagine a new environment for our new, permanent home. Furniture that fits, new things, permanent things.

Next month will be my husband's last worship service, his last communion served to his assigned church, and the last good-bye celebration as we leave a church. There will be a farewell dinner for all the retiring pastors in the conference, some of whom served in neighboring communities or who served churches we were also at.

1971 the year we met at college

Service in ministry is hard, and the itinerant ministry is even harder. I married  young, full of idealism and with a great faith in humanity. I did not believe then in evil. I had to encounter its many forms before I capitulated and accepted that evil does take residence in human hearts and contort relationships and corrupt institutions.

I have seen faith in action, how people can become the hands of a higher power and bring health and healing, wholeness and grace into lives. And both of these, evil and good, reside in each person waiting for our weakness or strength to loose them into the world.

Nearly forty-two years my husband and I have traveled this rocky road. Next month we reinvent the world. There are a lot of decisions to be made. The one thing I know is that I will, first thing, join that quilt guild in town and continue to explore the creative possibilities that quilting has offered me for twenty-three years. The creative process has grounded me when I needed it, invigorated me when I was down in heart, and offered me a therapeutic dose of happiness when around me was chaos.


We face many last things, but other things are 'forever'. And I thank God for those forever things in my life, especially for my best friend and partner, my husband and the father of my child.

Houses

I have been thinking about houses a lot lately. The house we are moving into and the houses I have lived in.

About the time of my birth a whole neighborhood of Levittown-type houses were built in the farm fields surrounding the 1830s house we lived in. Because of Facebook, several years ago I reconnected with friends who grew up on Rosemont Avenue. 

Rosemont Avenue houses behind me

My dad and his family had moved into the house in 1935. Grandpa was an insurance salesman, and the Depression destroyed his business and livelihood. He had to sell the new 1920s bungalow in town to rent half of a worn out old farmhouse.

Dad and Grandfather in the old house

After a few years he bought the house and fixed it up. Indoor plumbing was installed and three apartments carved out.  My cousins lived in one apartment, my grandparents in another, and my family in the third.

The house after my grandfather bought it and fixed it up

Before Rosemont Avenue and the housing project

In the 1940s grandfather built a gas station on the property in front of the house. Dad and my uncles and all their friends worked there at some time or another.

The house while grandfather was building a gas station along the main road

The Station

I was ten when my family moved to Michigan. We moved into a 1920s house on a (then) elm-lined street. I missed the old house and my friends and family. I dreamt about going back and buying the house. Then it was torn down and replaced by an apartment building. The lilacs and willows were torn up too.

The listing for the house my folks bought in Michigan

I went to college, married, and moved to twelve more towns; plus a move to a newly built parsonage during one four-year appointment. We have lived in the inner city, small towns, rural areas, and the suburbs. One parsonage was literally attached to the church, with a cement walkway between them. We could sit at the dining-room table and people would lean on the window sill and talk to us as we breakfasted.

city house

the new parsonage

small town house

village house

The neighborhood in inner city Philadelphia

When I was in college my family moved into the house I inherited and will move into next month. it is a mid-century modern ranch in the 'burbs.

My inherited house in the 'burbs

My nostalgia about houses started with that first move. When I was first quilting I made A House for All Seasons, twelve houses blocks to represent each month of the year.

Madison House quilt block

And when I designed my personal Album quilt I included a house block that was based on my first home, with a willow branch and lilacs. There were huge lilac bushes and willow trees surrounding the house.

My childhood home Album quilt block

I always wanted to make a quilt to represent the houses I have lived in. Now we are retiring to our last house I can start that project. I can also travel and see my paternal ancestral home in the Shenandoah Valley, and perhaps even the houses my mom lived in growing up in Kane and Milroy PA.

The Gochenour homestead in Virginia

Grandpa's birthplace in Milroy, PA

Almost forty-two years ago we married and moved into student housing at the seminary in Delaware, Ohio where we made our first home for three years. Oh, the places we've been and the houses we've been in!

The Methodist Theological School in Ohio dorm where we first lived