I hope that Grandmothertrucker doesn’t mind if I appropriate her de-acquisitioning / cleaning phrase “blundering”. It perfectly describes what I did all weekend. Things that are in the front living room that need to go to the trash / recycle / dungeon / wherever. Things that are in the chitchen that need to go to the trash / recycle / dungeon / wherever. Things that are in the dungeon that need to go… Okay, you get it now. I blundered up and down the stairs, in and out the door and wherever. Deacquisitioning is hard work, make no mistake. Rooooomba got a good workout this weekend and so did my ancient Electrolux. And that was all interspersed with internet shopping and / or research.

And I found the handmade table linen in the photoooo… It would be cool if I could say that this piece of work was made by a relative of mine. But it was not. I have inherited a small box of exquisitely crafted table linens from Ellen Jensen, a woman I didn’t know and isn’t related to me.

[Okay, just almost had a faaarrr in the oven. Back now.] Ellen Jensen is my [step]grandmother’s mother and The Commander put a note into the box describing what this stuff was.

My mother died in 1936 and after 16 years my father remarried a widow (Bolette) with an interesting history. Her parents were from Denmark. They came to the U.S. about 1900 and raised a large family of children in the midwest. Bolette’s mother Ellen Jensen had been educated in a Danish school for women and these are items which she produced as a result.

I do not know what I will do with all of this stuff. It’s a small box and so it can hang around indefinitely. I wonder if Ellen Jensen had any idea where her beautiful lacework might end up. I wonder if she knows that it didn’t end up with a blood relative. Bolette was the oldest of nine and I have no idea about where to find any other relatives, nor do I have the time to do the research. I will say to Ellen that her lacework has landed in a family who values her work. And loved her daughter Bolette. Bolette never had children of her own but she and I always claimed each other as grandmother and grandchild. I loved her.

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