That one lady at the estate sale in Tacoma who knew every piece of furniture's history

Went to this sale out in Tacoma last month, some old craftsman house near the stadium district. There was this older woman, must have been in her 80s, just sitting in the corner of the living room on this beat up armchair, not really talking to anyone. I walked over to check out a dresser and she just pipes up, tells me that dresser belonged to her mother in law who brought it over from Sweden in 1937. She went on for like ten minutes about how the family used it as a changing table for four generations of babies. I ended up buying the dresser for $40, and she gave me a little handwritten note with all the names of the kids who used it. Has anyone else run into a family member at a sale who just sat there telling stories all day? It made the whole thing feel totally different than just digging through junk.

2 comments

2 Comments

johns186d ago

Bet that note tracks Tacoma's whole Swedish immigrant history in one dresser.

leo2386d ago

Man that dresser story is wild. I bought a lamp from this old guy in Federal Way once and he said it was from his grandma's house in the 1940s. He even showed me a photo of her sitting next to it. Felt weird paying him for it like I was stealing a piece of his life.