Found Objects - Estate Trash Pile

  There are certain tells I find when combing through trashed estate ephemera. Hobbies leave a distinct trail through the course of the abandoned debris. Sewing ephemera is one of the most obvious.

A lifetime's collection of carefully saved buttons is usually the first sign. Followed by thread, needles, thimbles. These always seem to end up in one of the boxes marked for destruction. Yet, to me, these objects are the essence of what the person was all about. Sure, they often (but not always!) have no monetary value--no one on eBay is going to bid on them. So, to the heirs, they are merely in the way. And they are kicked to the curb along with other items that don't make the cut for the estate sale or eBay auction block.

Too often, however, in the heirs mad rush to weed out the valuables from the junk, they blot out all that was human about the recently departed loved one. They toss out letters, pictures, mementos of a full life. In their haste, they often destroy the 'history' of the person and by doing so they destroy the history of their place and time. 

One grain of sand at a time.

Every day another pile of ephemera gets kicked the curb, and precious artifacts of the 19th and 20th century are buried with soiled Pampers and fast-food containers.