My Grandmother's Soup Tureen

My Grandmother's Soup Tureen

Over 20 years ago, I inherited a soup tureen and two candy bowls from my grandmother. I have never used them, but I love the memories they evoke. But, they are taking up room in my modest kitchen. How long shall I keep them? If I try to give them away, who would want them?

To help with perspective on these questions, I reread a talk given by David J. Ekerdt, Director of the Gerontology Center and Professor of Sociology at the University of Kansas. Prof. Ekerdt leads the Household Moves Project: Research about downsizing possessions in later life at the Life Span Institute.

Here is just a fascinating tidbit from his talk at the recent NASMM - National Association of Senior Move Managers conference.

David Ekert: For several years, I have led a team that is studying possessions and aging, in particular downsizing when folks move from larger-to-smaller quarters in later life. If elders can do this, it can free them to continue to live independently, and in more suitable housing. Even if they don’t move, it can provide peace of mind about the future.

In my field, gerontology, we use the metaphor of the convoy to talk about all the people—the changing cast of characters--who accompany us from birth to death. We call this a social convoy that supports us across time. So, too, the body of one’s possessions, at any one time and as borne through time, can be called a “convoy of material support.”

People develop emotional relations with their things (we want to give them a good home, or we can’t stand to look at them). Like social convoys, we maintain this resource for its actual as well as potential supportiveness.

Social and material convoys share one other feature: the person at their center may regard the convoy members with ambivalence -- the stock and store of one’s belongings can be an achievement, a delight, and comfort -- but they may also be a burden.

Possessions furnish life-course careers as workers, partners, parents, property owners, and cultural participants.

People understand and mark their place and progress in life in relation to goods, using them to fulfill age-related expectations and roles.
We groom our changing bodies with possessions, we cover them with clothing that comes and goes.
We stock (and re-stock) living areas and properties when the household expands to include partners and children, who then develop their own material convoys over time.
Successive jobs require specialized clothing, equipment, and means of transportation.
Away from work, possessions provision leisure time with entertainment, recreation, and self-development.
Things received as gifts, often given to mark the passage of time or big life events, enlarge the convoy.
Eventually, we may accept custody and responsibility for heirlooms and “family things.”

Possessions have communication value; they tell stories about us. We use them to evaluate in ourselves and in others how well life is going.

In sum, these things, these belongings furnish and express the course of our lives.

In later life, three additional dimensions attend the material convoy :

First, some belongings have endured for a long time, making them biographically meaningful and even more prone to be kept.
With advancing age, the manageability and future disposition of things come into question. What had been “meaningful” begins to seem more like “material.”
Following from this, the social convoy of family and friends takes an increasing interest in the safety and security of elders, and this concern can extend to their property. The material convoy—which is actually personal property—becomes a public matter.

So, from cradle to grave, and from place to place, people maintain a material convoy. Items may come and go, but there is always a convoy.

In academic writing about consumers, and households, and possessions, “conduits” are all of the means by which possessions could flow out of a household.

A yard sale is a Conduit
Family members given a gift are a Conduit
A thrift shop is a Conduit
Putting things at the curb is a Conduit
SENIOR MOVE MANAGEMENT SERVICES are a CONDUIT!

Are you overwhelmed by your belongings? Is it time to sell, donate, disperse and discard. Judith Moves You can patiently and sensitively help.

Judith Kahn
Owner
Judith Moves You, LLC
judith@judithmovesyou.com
917.592.9323