The Cedar Chest

I was asked by a friend to talk about my mom’s cedar chest for an article a friend is writing in Austin Family Magazine (November Edition). This was my reply.

My mom was a single mom of three girls. Our only keepsakes were photographs that were stored in a large shoebox and hauled from house to house.  The photos told the story of the time before my mother left my father, the time when we lived with our grandparents while she tried to extract herself from that painful relationship, and the time we lived in Austin growing up in the 70’s and 80’s.

 

One constant of our childhood was the cedar chest.  My mom’s cedar chest is a large chest about 3 feet wide, 5 feet long and 4 feet high.  She purchased it for $21 at an auction in Virginia.  The grandfather who had built the chest had died and the family was having an estate auction.  My mom did not escape her marriage with much, but the cedar chest was one item that traveled with us from apartment to apartment to house to house.

 

What was actually in the cedar chest was often a mystery as it served many purposes.  We didn’t have a table to eat off of or a chest of drawers to store our clothes in, but we had the cedar chest.  Often it was covered with plants.  For a while, our hamster’s cage lived on the cedar chest.

 

Every move was made more exciting because the cedar chest would be emptied. The blankets and woolens would be moved to regular cardboard boxes.  During these times the cedar chest became a prime hiding spot while playing hide and seek. Two children could easily fit.

 

Occasionally, the top of the cedar chest would be cleared off and I would have the opportunity to dig through it with my sisters.  I remember how much I loved the smell. It was never long before someone was inside shutting the lid.

 

I think our cedar chest was a symbol of constancy in an otherwise sometimes chaotic environment.  I know it is the only piece of furniture my sisters and I are all attached to from our childhood.

 

Often childhood memories are attached to people, places, things and smells.  The cedar chest was Mom. It was her most treasured possession. She still has it.  The cedar chest went with us everywhere we moved; it was the constant in our changing environment.  We did not have many special things in our family.  As a thing that held treasures it was always a mystery waiting to be discovered and what a smell! Nothing compares to the smell of cedar.