MUCH to my delight, we found some items during our basement Excavation that have no dollar value at all. But these are the fibers of my family and truly Sentimental Salvages.

The outside signage for my great grandmother’s beauty shop. Note the phone number!

The clock that hung outside my grandfather’s dental office. All my cousins and I remember that when we were children, whenever we’d see my grandfather (whether at the dentist or not), he’d cup his hand under our chins and ask to see our teeth.

Many apologies for this picture! I didn’t realize the significance of this tin until later, when we discussed it and there wasn’t enough time to go back downstairs to take a picture. This was a tin that one of the (multiple) Ann’s in my family wrote her name on (I believe she was a teenager at the time), along with the year, 1935.

I believe that this is an heirloom in the making. It’s a weathervane that my (currently 28 year old) cousin, Emmy, made as a child. I hope they hold onto this one!

Uncle Jack told me that this (it is one of a pair) was a lamp that he and Aunt Ann got when they were newlyweds, with their grocery coupons. Apparently, grocery stores had a points system where if you shopped enough, you’d get to pick out an item. And these eagle lamps were their first purchase.

Ah, the infamous chicken coop. My mother told me that one day Nana and her mother, Grandmother Haines, came back from the flea market with this thing, and all the kids wondered what one earth she was going to do with it. Clever Nana! She added a glass top and made it a coffee table. It sat in my aunt and uncle’s living room for years and this is one that Emmy has HER name on!