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| Lorlee |
"I am really pleased to report," she writes, "that I am one of three winners.
"There may have only been three entries, for all I know, but I am pleased nonetheless," she adds with characteristic modesty.
She wrote a remembrance about the auction sale at her Bartos Grandparents' farm in the Glenwood/Alexandria area. It is wonderful.
"There may have only been three entries, for all I know, but I am pleased nonetheless," she adds with characteristic modesty.
She wrote a remembrance about the auction sale at her Bartos Grandparents' farm in the Glenwood/Alexandria area. It is wonderful.
The Auction
By Lorlee Bartos
For today was the day of the auction and we’d all gathered for the final disposition. As I climbed the little hill behind the house for one last time to survey it all, the old pump was painfully creaking, its ungreased squeak seemed to be talking to me of days gone by.
Days when there were chickens in the coop … and sometimes a kitten. Christmases with grandchildren overflowing the little house. Grandpa stooping at the pump for a drink of water on his way back from the lake where he’d been fishing. Do you know that he could magically produce sling shots with just a y-shaped twig and a piece of rubber from an old inner tube?
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Lorlee's Grandparents
They had moved from the farm and
lived in a little house by the RR tracks on
55 just west of 29 by Glenwood.
This is a photo from 1963. The auction was about '68.
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The October wind felt colder than it ought to have, but the ladies aid was selling hot coffee and “Donuts for a nickel.” The auctioneer’s raspy voice echoed. I saw a tear gather in the corner of my Dad’s eye as he helped display the items for sale. People gathered round and each piece brought a “Do you remember” or “I was sitting in that chair the night that…..”
How can you put a price on so personal a thing as a memory? How can anyone know how much a little girl loved grandma’s organ or how fascinated she was by the turn of the century wedding picture nestled on the bride’s veil and somehow the whole thing was bound up in a huge gilt frame. Or how peaceful it was to fall asleep in Grandpa’s chair or blow out the match from his pipe.
Grandma’s old purse lay in the corner of an emptied room. She always had a piece of candy in that purse for me. Who would buy an old purse on a day like today?
And Grandma – looking so much smaller than she was --- how must she have felt to see her things taken away by people who really didn’t know what they were worth. She would have no use for them because she was going to spend the remainder of her days in a rest home. The finality of it all was just too much for her and she turned and cried on my shoulder.
She was no longer my grandmother but simply a person whose whole world was being sold from under her. And all I could do was put my arms around her and cry with her.
No – there would be no more trips to Grandma’s house because today was the day of the auction. How much am I bid for a piece of a life?
How can you put a price on so personal a thing as a memory? How can anyone know how much a little girl loved grandma’s organ or how fascinated she was by the turn of the century wedding picture nestled on the bride’s veil and somehow the whole thing was bound up in a huge gilt frame. Or how peaceful it was to fall asleep in Grandpa’s chair or blow out the match from his pipe.
Grandma’s old purse lay in the corner of an emptied room. She always had a piece of candy in that purse for me. Who would buy an old purse on a day like today?
And Grandma – looking so much smaller than she was --- how must she have felt to see her things taken away by people who really didn’t know what they were worth. She would have no use for them because she was going to spend the remainder of her days in a rest home. The finality of it all was just too much for her and she turned and cried on my shoulder.
She was no longer my grandmother but simply a person whose whole world was being sold from under her. And all I could do was put my arms around her and cry with her.
No – there would be no more trips to Grandma’s house because today was the day of the auction. How much am I bid for a piece of a life?
