A light unto my path...

Growing up, antiques were a natural part of our lives. As kids, we didn't really do much different because of having them in our home. What I have enjoyed is that everything has a story. There were the four chairs and settee that came from France with English tapestry covers. It first had a black horsehair surface when it got to America. It found it's way to the southern part of the country, where the owner was afraid the Yankees would get it, so it was hidden in their attic before it was inherited by someone and was moved to New York. Mom and Dad purchased it from a woman in LeMars, IA. I do remember they were our perch when we did something naughty and we were placed on them awaiting Dad to come into the house. (4 kids, 4 chairs) Sort of time out chairs before the expression ever came to be. (Mom was ahead of her time.)
I remember being so proud when my first grade class took a field trip to our farm to see the antiques. The bus pulling into our yard, Mom standing out on the sidewalk in a dress waving to us. It's a treasured vision I keep in my mind. I remember kids asking me how we could live with it all, it was natural to us, we didn't know anything different.
My sister and I have followed in Mom and Dad's love for antiques. Our homes are filled with treasures we've collected over the years.
Victorian hanging and table lamps are something the folks have hanging around the house. Some have been electrified, some not. Dad has restored many. He's polished much brass in his lifetime on his shopsmith out in the garage. I think jewelers rouge was something I've always known about as a polishing agent. Then there's the Brasso and rags we polished the brass on the old cars with.
I have collected some lamps myself. There's my collections of mini lamps which mostly started when I got a bunch at an auction. There have been gifts from Dad and more auction finds. I've searched for that illusive lamp shade too, finding the local Amish community stocks Aladdin lamp parts and shades, and like Dad, have a box of lamp parts and chimneys to fit that lamp that may find it's way to my house that is missing something.
Left: One of my finds a few years back was this hanging lamp, but my house doesn't have the 8 ft. ceilings I grew up with, it can't be hung here, so it found it's way to Mom and Dad's house.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. Psalms 119:105

Treasured Cabinet

This cabinet was once in my Great Grandparents, Andrew Peter (Anders Per Jönsson) and is wife Albertina (Gustafsdotter) Johnson's home. We don't have many items from my Great Grandparents, so this is a treasure to me.
They immigrated in 1881, from Ljung, Östergötland, Sweden to North America and settled on a farm near Canton, Lincoln, SD, in Dakota Territory, in June 1881. In 1903 Andrew and Albertina, with 3 of their children (Carl, Lena, & Joe), moved to a farm near Tea, SD.
The cabinet was known to have been at the Tea farm. It ended up in our big garage, one of the first buildings on our farm and in my lifetime I only knew it to hold antique car parts. It was painted white. I always told Dad I would like it restored someday and some years ago he took on the job of restoring it, stripping the paint and paper inside on the shelves, and gave it to me as a birthday present! It is quite old, as the shelves are supported by wires that run along the side which the shelves sit on.
I was lucky to fit it in the back of my stationwagon to transport it across the state to my home here in Denver. (It barely fit in, with the back seats down, and helpful neighbors got it from my car and into my house.)
Displayed in it are my red dishes. Some are the Avon Cape Cod series, a red pitcher and glass set I purched at the Rejmyre Glass Factory in Sweden when I was an exchange student and other red pieces I picked up here and there. The two carnival glass vases, on the center of the center shelf, I picked up at an auction in Waverly.

Collecting Art Supplies

It's not odd that an art teacher would be a collector of old art materials. My house is decorated with art and art supplies along with other eclectic items I treasure. I've gotten many of these art items from family members, friends and even former students, along with purchasing a few myself. Most people don't notice the old box of chalk or jar of dried up paint as being something anyone would want to have.
I haven't added to my collection for a while. Have you ever collected something and at some point it's too easy to accumulate and it's not as much fun anymore. Of course, once I see that unique piece I'll be all excited again!

My Clocks

You can't turn back the clock but you can wind it up again.

After posting the ten Boom clock I thought you might enjoy seeing some of MY clocks. Of course they've all been gifts from Mom and Dad but they are mine. They each have a story around them... I hope I get them right.
The kitchen clock. This is a key wind up clock that hung in the kitchen on the family farm when Dad was growing up. There's a little screw on the bottom of the pendulum to adjust the swing and speed of the clock. The numbers are hand painted on the front. You can look closely and see the pencil lines where someone measured out the placement and drew the numbers in. The decals were added many years after it's purchase. Dad offered to take them off and repaint the clock but I wanted it just like it is.
The wall clock. Dad got this one for about $5. back in the 1960's. He'd buy things before people were collecting them. It hung in the Fairbanks scale house on our farm for many years, keeping spiders and mice company as it hung out there in cold winters and hot summers. I always asked him when and if he was going to refinish it someday. It seemed lonely and forgotten out there. When he was finally refinishing it, I etched the glass in the bottom square by using a casserole lid to make the oval where the acid didn't reach and painted the glass black with a gold trim on top. Dad offered to get a new face for me but I appreciate the original. This also gets wound by a key.
The alarm clock. The "Early Bird" gets the worm. I remember the day this clock came into our home in a box of clocks and parts Dad got at an auction or on a random search. (I'll have to ask him.) It's always fun to search through a box of treasures and as a youngster I picked this one out quickly when I saw the robin that has a tug of war with a worm going in and out, on each tick of the clock. This clock sat on our fireplace mantle for many years and entertained children and adults alike. I mentioned how much I liked the clock and a few years ago was surprised with it as a birthday present.
My Dad loves clocks. I've seen him take many of them apart and put them back together again. He's got everything from the large 9 foot grandfather clock, a chiming Waterbury grandfather clock that chimes every 15 minutes (it's normally not going as the chimes keep a person up all night) and it also keeps track of the moon phases, a clock with wooden gears, a pool clock for timed matches, to many pocket watches and of course everything in-between. He's fixed many a clock for friends and neighbors and I've sorted clock and watch parts in the basement for him where he has a work place. I guess you could say his obsession for clocks has rubbed off on Mom as she enjoys his collection, as it decorates the home, whether it's against a wall, on a table top, or across our fireplace mantle. I guess you could say it has rubbed off on his children too...

Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived.

ten Boom Carriage Clock

Mom and Dad have an antique carriage clock that was purchased by Dad's cousin, Beth Swanson, when she worked on stage in the opera in Europe in the 1960's. She knew of Dad's interest in clocks and found this one for him. It has ten Boom on the face of the clock in hand painted porcelain. We have always wondered at the chance it would be from the ten Boom family, since hearing of Corrie ten Boom's "The Hiding Place" story.
Corrie was a Dutch Christian Holocaust survivor who helped many Jews escape the Nazis during World War II. She began training as a watchmaker in 1920 and in 1922 became the first female watchmaker licensed in the Netherlands, following in her family business. Wouldn't that be amazing if our clock did come from that family of clock makers?
The clock has a box with a glass front for protection and viewing. A carriage clock is in a rectangular housing, designed for travel in the 19th century. Since people traveled by carriage in this period, these clocks needed to stand up to the rigors of a trip without failing. Carriage clocks reached their zenith in the late 1860s. Several characteristics can be used to identify a carriage clock. The first is the case, which is usually made from polished brass or another bright metal. The face of the clock is covered in glass, while the hands may be placed on a porcelain background to make them clearly visible.
If anyone reading this knows more about this clock please contact me.

Organ Music

Did you know I used to play the piano and sometimes the organ in church when I was younger. Our little country church was blessed with people with musical talent, so for many years it has had the organ and piano playing together.
My sister Deb played the piano and organ too, so she would play the organ and I would play the piano in our duets at church starting with Christmas programs of long ago. Having an organ and piano in our home, we practiced there, but they were both involved in duets by family and guests alike, back in the days when activity surrounded neighborhood and family visits. Anyone who played a piano or organ was pressed to play when they entered the Johnson home. Often Dad would sit at the piano and he played many duets with his girls, as long as the brown hymnal was used.

When we were younger yet we had a pump organ in our house. Many smiles and lasting memories were formed around that old pump organ... pumping your feet on the pedals gave power to the sounds that escaped. Our vacuum also played a part in the sounds to fill our home when it was hooked up to the bellows leaving the air supply constant with no need to pump. What fun and trickery... In the photo to the side is Mom's cousin Iona giving the organ a hand back in 1958.
I was given this pump organ (photo below) a few years ago and it has been sitting in my little garage cramped between the mower and flower pots. Currently it's under a tarp where it has become the base for lamp displays at garage sales and it also corals the garden tools stored to the side of it.

My Dad was behind my "adoption" of this old pump organ, it is to become a project for him. Dad is a magician at refinishing, tinkering with the old to make it work again. The ivory is all there, the stops and wooden pieces too, I believe the bellows are probably dried out and silent but soon it will travel to the farm for Dad to give it his special touch. Mom and Dad are planning to come to Denver this week or month. I'm hoping for the week so I can spend time with them before school starts for me next week.
What will I do with all the space in my garage? The city wide garage sales (Steve would always say each year, "you haven't sold that garage yet?!") in Denver are approaching September 13th.