Cupboards both have personality

This is the tale of two china cupboards.

I grew up with one of them, and my wife grew up with the other.

The one I grew up with is in Richmond these days with my sister Louise. She inherited it from my mother, who inherited it from her parents, who inherited it from Judge Haynes.

It’s a lovely piece, and I’ve always been fond of it. But I’m delighted it’s with my sister; there’s absolutely no room for it at our house.

As the family lore goes, the tall piece of furniture with glass doors arrived in Jay County via Railway Express for Judge Haynes and his family. Young Elwood Haynes was dispatched to pick it up at the station with a horse and wagon and deliver it home.

But legend has it that Elwood — later an automotive pioneer — didn’t get along well with horses. Somewhere on the short route across town on what were then dirt streets, the horses balked. One version is that they reared up and dumped the wagon and its contents to the ground.

The china cupboard was badly damaged. The glass in its doors was broken.

There’s no record of how long Elwood was in the doghouse for that, but I remember my mother saying that the replacement glass was hand-rolled at a small glass factory in Pennville. Like some of the windows in my childhood home, there’s a waviness to the surface.

The one my wife grew up with isn’t quite that old, but it has a personality all its own.

Unfortunately, it’s not a personality I enjoy.

Sitting in the dining room of her family home in Jacksonville, Illinois, the cupboard is a dark, brooding piece of furniture with heavy carving on its surface.

It always struck me as something that ought to belong to the Addams Family or be in the background of an Edward Gorrey etching.

My wife, of course, loves it. But it too is one of those pieces of heirloom furniture we have no room for.

Since my mother-in-law’s death several years ago, the cupboard has remained in Illinois in the family home, where her eldest brother now resides.

There it sits, brooding and dark.

Now, however, Connie’s eldest brother is preparing to move into assisted living. The old family home needs to be put in order. She and her other siblings are gathering next month to give it their best effort.

None of them have room for the china cupboard. None of our kids have room for it. Yet it’s still rich in childhood memories for my wife.

Its ultimate fate is still unknown.

And what of the antique Haynes piece with the Pennville glass?

My sister Louise finds herself downsizing and considering a move. She says the china cupboard will go with her.

And she’s also specified that it will be bequeathed to our niece in North Carolina.

Sounds like a plan, except for one little thing: Our niece and her husband are into mid-century modern furniture. That lovely antique with its rich wood and wavy glass will stick out like a sore thumb.

And like most young people of their generation, they don’t have much china to display in it anyway.

Which brings us to yet another question: What’s going to happen to all those dishes?