The Big House by George Howe Colt, a book review with a personal story…

How does one get ready to leave a family house, the place where memories were made for multiple generations?

In this book, which I graded 5 stars on Goodreads, the Colt family and cousins have decided to sell the Atkinson Family’s summer cottage, which has brought the family to Cape Cod every summer since the author’s great-grandparents built the place. The book is a poignant memoir and summary of their last summer there, what treasures to keep,  what was “cleaned out” and the feelings that were experienced.

This sounds sad, but it wasn’t, really. In the words of Solomon and Pete Seeger, there is a season for everything, and sometimes, it’s time to go. It might be to a smaller house or apartment in the same town, or as for us, a smaller house in a smaller town that’s close to family.  This is an excellent book, especially for anyone contemplating selling the family home. It was quite helpful and encouraging to me as we were planning our next move, but not close to the packing stage. (Once you start packing, there’s hardly any time to think, much less read!)

Personally, I’m in the odd position of having an association with at least two family houses, one, my husband’s great grandparents’ home in a small Missouri town, sold when we were newlyweds in need of furniture, and the house he grew up in, which we’ve lived in ten years now, which our granddaughter knows as “Mimi and Papa’s house.”.

This painting, done by our dear friend Betsy Cozine, was a gift to my father-in-law from my mother-in-law, painted from a photo just after the house was sold. It was a great gift for someone who valued memories and experiences more than acquiring things.

We suspect that selling the Missouri house was difficult for Dad…it was his childhood home and his grandparents house when he was very young. His mom, Gram, couldn’t live there alone anymore.

For us, a very young married couple, it was easier. We had a snowy weekend (fun for southerners) cleaning out the house with parents and a couple cousins. We filled up a trailer and our new home had furniture!  We enjoyed sending photos of Gram’s things in our home, although she was more thrilled to meet her first great-granddaughter a year later.

For us, leaving the Atlanta House has been hard, even though we’ve known it’s time. We want to be near kids and grandkids, downsize, to have a slower pace…if we could only skip the boxes!

What did we have too much of? 

Books, of course. I love to read and parting with books is difficult. Will I really read Steinbeck, Shakespeare and Chaucer again?  Maybe.  Will I reread the many modern novels I’ve bought the past few years?  A few, then they need to be passed along for others to enjoy.  A few beautiful old classics treasured by our grandparents are a harder decision…probably to keep most of them, but I will have to work on displaying them so they look like treasures, not like dusty old books!

Fabrics: I enjoy sewing and I had an adequate collection of fabric on hand (Sewists call this a “stash”). Then I inherited a lot of fabric and patterns from my sister Janice.  A few times I have bought fabric while traveling.   Can I use it all?  Eventually, so into another box it went – I’m looking forward to sewing in my new sewing room, just starting to be unpacked, but not downsized in the least!  (I must confess, I went to JoAnn’s Liquidation  this week and got a little more–it’s time to unpack the machines and sew!)

Clothes:  do we all have too many clothes?  I did, at least until this move, designating a few more to donate as I have unpacked. Clothes aren’t memories…if I don’t wear it, I don’t need to keep it. But now, where’s the new green dress I made last spring? (I found it, finally, in a box marked “warm winter woolies”.)

The really hard decisions, for us, are the china, crystal, artwork and a few furniture pieces, what our family passes down.   Our new church had a rummage sale to benefit a reading program, so that helped:  cozy side chairs we didn’t need, the too-many decorative items we had packed and moved. Both our daughters took a few things, which made everyone happy. We haven’t figured out where to hang artwork yet, and the family pictures are still boxed-it won’t feel finished until they’re hung.  We kept the big dinner table, as more family dinners will happen around it.  We’re still thinking through tableware, waiting for installation of an extra shelf in each kitchen cabinet, which will give us a little more storage. (We’ve learned that a lot could be stored or lost in the corners of 1970’s cabinetry, probably why cabinetmakers don’t used the corner space anymore.)   It’s hard to let go of wedding gifts to great-grandparents (as noted by our parents),  but if we don’t make these difficult decisions, we’re just passing that responsibility on to our daughters, so we choose which treasurers to keep.

So how does all this relate to the book I’m reviewing?

This book is a memoir of how one family got ready to say goodbye to their family house, the setting of all the big family times with grandparents and cousins, how change is hard, but good and necessary sometimes.  If you’re contemplating selling the house that’s also your memory bank, or perhaps thinking of establishing a vacation place for your family, this memoir will help.  Plus, it’s just a great, fun to read book!