A Family’s Heirloom China: The Echoes of History

To the Editor:

Re “Five Women, Heirloom China and the Reverence It May Lose” (front page, Jan. 5):

Rukmini Callimachi’s sad but lovely tale of doomed heirloom dishes evokes a complicated reaction. Of course it is impractical to dine regularly using such items, or in many cases even to find space to keep all of them. But to what extent do the issues go beyond the specifics of eating habits to encompass a current lack of interest in our own histories?

Do younger people who don’t care about these old items also feel no connection to any other family heirlooms — to the concrete artifacts of their own family stories?

I am reminded of my shock when my aunt informed me that the photo albums my grandfather had taken onboard a ship from Tokyo to Seattle in 1919 had been tossed in a dumpster, because “we never met those people and we can’t read Japanese.” (Thankfully a cousin rescued them and later gave them to me for safekeeping.)

How many people know the biographical details of their long gone ancestors? Where do we draw the line between lack of space and failure of imagination? Might not there be room for a few saucers, if only to put coins and keys in, along with a bit of the history they represent?

Andrew S. Mine
Chicago

Advertisement

To the Editor:

I drank in every word of your article about heirloom china. On Saturday excursions during the heyday of the department store, my mother, aunt and I visited china departments in much the way others might check out a new exhibit at a gallery.

We eagerly parsed the differences between brands, debating the relative merits of plates with vibrant patterns versus those adorned only with elegant bands of silver or gold.