He was 98 when he passed away and had been our town's historian. He was the author of three local history books and he had donated his huge American Native artifact collection to a local museum. He mapped all our town cemeteries, presented public educational programs and taught elementary school children.
He lived a road over from me and our paths continuously crossed. He drove me around showing where old holes were actually the remains of early house foundations including one from the 1660 period where the first white man to own my property, as part of his larger holdings, built his first house. We found handmade chimney bricks in the hole that I will always cherish as a bridge to these earlier humans. He grew flax and made hearth brooms. He wrote documentation for some local important historical items that I own. I would call him asking for information that I knew I could find nowhere else. He was a friend and passed away a few years back. His widow has just been put in a rest home as she recently broke her hip.
I saw there was an estate sale at his house this weekend. It started yesterday but I had to work. I went down this morning. The daughter said that it had been a mob scene yesterday and people were actually knocking on their door Thursday night and even asked if they could climb into the large dumpster in the driveway. She said everything that was valuable was already gone as there had been many antique dealers and even a historical society there. The remaining items in the yard, house and garage were a mess from the mobs of people. A lady told me not to bother going inside the house as there was really nothing left.
I found two of his brooms in the garage, some local history books of the town next to ours, a rock with a hole in it that he wrote on the back was found at Lake Champlain, an old blue ticking pillow cover that had never been used, a graniteware pan, hyacinth vase, fungus and a strange piece of wood, what looks to be part of a Native American ax, wooden box, a wood presentation pen with the name of the library where I use to serve on the Board of Directors, plant hook, small clay pots and best of all his original manuscripts and documentation for one of his books (I'll put in the town's archives). I asked how much for the pile and was given such a low price that I didn't even try to bargain.
The items I brought home were all trash to the previous mobs that had been through the estate but all treasures to me. RIP friend and thanks for the memories and lessons passed on.