Old Documents

It wasn’t like I wasn’t doing anything during my July hiatus from writing. I refinished my mother’s old sewing machine cabinet. Took the better part of the month. The cabinet houses the machine Mom and Dad purchased for $300 in 1948. That was some chunk of change. The ash veneer didn’t make the cabinet the investment, but it was worth stripping the Shellac finish. A water stain left a heavy dark ring which had penetrated the veneer. Where mom’s forearms rested on the working surface – years of pushing material through the feeder foot – the finish was cracked and flaking.

The extent of my experience in refinishing furniture consists of one old Army filing cabinet found at a church yard sale and picked up for a five dollar donation. Sixty dollars worth of stripper, stain and sandpaper and I had a nice two drawer cabinet with US Army branded to the side. I figured with a bit of patience and a craftsmen’s standard which Mom would have approved, I could tackle the cabinet that has more sentimental value than market. As a little kid I’d crawl under the companion chair. It made a perfect cave-like entrance under the cabinet.

The first challenge - removal of the bottom drawer. It never came out. Some how jammed. After examining the simple track on the other drawers and sliding it in and out, I never could figure out why it was stuck. Mom couldn’t either. She never tried to force it, afraid the thin plywood bottom would give way. After I fiddled with it for some time it accidentally popped it out.

Behind the draw I found several old documents. The first two items were insurance policies for Dad taken out by his mother when he was ten years old. The monthly premium was ten cents. The policy value $144.

I also discovered a W-2 from 1949 where Dad’s annual earnings were $831.21 and the Federal income tax withheld was $19.40. There were a few other documents, but the piece of paper most interesting was torn from a magazine. On the page was a picture of a five room house with garage, floor plan included. The house is the very house Mom and Dad built over fifty years ago. Dad used this page as the only guide. No architectural drawing. The finish product, an exact replica, includes the pine trees and the dead elm in the school house yard. Makes this kind of eerie.

Three weeks later the cabinet is completed. Removed dark water stains. Nice finish. Even reupholstered the chair in faux leather, replacing the original faux leather. And the bottom drawer will never come out again. Stuck.