Something Old

I have an odd obsession with antiques.  Not that my apartment is filled with them or anything, but I could spend hours and hours in an antique store just looking.
A few weeks ago my dad and aunts were cleaning out their mom's (my grandma's) house and I went along to help out. Let's just say I had a hayday.  If there is anything better than just plain old antiques, it has to be when those antiques have some family significance.  Dad was fine with me taking whatever I wanted because it was less for them to sort out.  I just have to share some of the treasures I found!


This is an old stereoscope my grandparents had.  These were all the rage in the early 1900s.  You place the picture in the holder and look through the viewfinder and you see a 3D image of the picture.  It's pretty much just like having Netflix.

Here's a close up of one of my favorite pictures.  

Here's a gorgeous mirror and brush set that used to belong to my grandma.

These are old jello molds.  Are they adorable or what??  I will have to find a really cute way to display them.

Here is an old coffee maker.  It's currently part of our coffee bar at the apartment.

The replacement knob on it is even adorable.  

After I pointed this out to my aunts I got the lecture of, "They never threw anything away during the Great Depression.  They just fixed everything when it broke.  Not like us now."  

And I was all like, "Yeah I know.  I read the whole Kit series of the American Girl books."   But of course I just nodded and smiled politely and played along.  

And these are my favorite parts! 

This is a letter to my great grandma from our parish.  Note the price of a stamp was 1 1/2 cents.

Also note, all you had to do was write the name of the person and the town they were from to mail a letter.  Nice.

This letter contained a list of contributions from all of the parishioners of Heun.  I guess pew rent was a big deal back then.  There were sure a lot of Brichaceks on this list!

We found my grandpa's old gas ration cards from World War II.

There were letters of receipts of when my great grandpa brought livestock to the Omaha Stockyards.
It is dated 1932.  He sold 19 hogs here.

In another envelope, there was a letter from one of his sales.

May 24, 1932
Mr. Anton E. Brichacek
Clarkson, Nebr.

Dear Mr. Brichacek:

Herewith account of sales covering your 6 cattle received and sold today.

The cattle market was 25 to 50 cents lower yesterday, with a great many left unsold and today the heavy cattle showed a little advance, but the light cattle were very hard to sell and a great many of them still unsold.

We worked your cattle out with all buyers, and sold the 5 heifers at 4.50 to an order-buyer, and the one steer to a packer, and feel that we got out in good shape compared with the way other cattle like them sold here today.  

Thanking you very kindly Mr. Brichacek, and hoping to hear from you, we remain

Yours very truly,
STOLINSKI L. S. COM. CO.


And this is probably the coolest thing I found.

This is the Omaha Daily News from "Thursday, November 7, 1918." 

At first I thought this was the front page from when World War I ended.  Then I talked to my history buff fiance about it and he found out something very interesting.  

The date here is November 7, but Armistice Day is November 11.  The Omaha Daily News mistakenly reported that the war was over.

An excerpt from the Memoirs of Fr. William F. Rigge, S.J. that Patrick happened to run across on his many days in the Creighton archives: 

At noon on November 7 all the whistles in town tooted for an hour or two at the most 

welcome news that the great war was over. This rejoicing was, however, premature. It was 

caused by the Omaha Daily News which said it had learned it from its Ouija board. For a 

long time after, this paper had to put up with the teasings and pleasantries of the other papers 

in regard to its Ouija board. 

  

I wonder if they just reprinted the same story 4 days later.  haha 

Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did!