Aunt Maudie's Attic

When I was a young girl growing up in New Hampshire, I had a wonderful extended family and lots of friends who I adored. My favorite great aunt lived at the top of the hill on the street where I lived. She had taken care of my brothers and sisters and me when we were small. To me she was beautiful with her white hair always in a bun, wearing her cotton dresses and her apron.  She was an old soul who baked cookies and fresh bread on an old wood cookstove. She always smelled of something baking and sweet. She canned and cooked everything from scratch, from an old beat up cookbook filled with notes she had penciled in changes along the way. When I turned 14, she gave me that cookbook, and I still have it today 40 years later.

 

Aunt Maudie lived in a big three story New Englander, the top floor an attic. As children we would always try to sneak up the creaky stairs because we knew something spectacular was up there. But she always seemed to know when we tried and shooed us downstairs. 

 

After she passed away, my cousin inherited the house but wasn't really interested in any of the contents so she offered it to my sister and me. "Of course, I will be right there" I remember saying, and jumped in my little truck and sped to meet her at her house. I greeted my cousin and suddenly thought "THE ATTIC!"  and bolted for the stairs as my cousin yelled after me "Where you going?" "THE ATTIC" I cried gleefully as I reached for the doorknob leading to the third floor.  

 

I really think my hands were shaking as  I climbed the old wooden stairs, smelling the dusty long forgotten treasure I was sure was there. At the top of the stairs was a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling with a pull string attached. As I reached for the string, I held my breath with a thousand thoughts running through my mind at once. What was I going to find? Would it be everything I imagined? I didn't for a moment think I would be disappointed and - just like you dream about - when that  light came on it was one of those moments..... AAAAAAHHHHHAAAAA!

 

There it was, just as I knew it would be, old trunks filled with clothes, and pictures, old wooden beds, metal beds, chairs, jars and bottles, old suitcases from long gone relatives, photos of people I didn't recognize, old gilt picture frames with portraits of oil, charcoal and so many other wonderful things I had always dreamed about. My family of the past all tied up in ribbons and shoeboxes, saved just for me to find all these years after I had grown.

 

That moment was defining for me and started my life long love of collecting things and treasuring memories, and the wonder of where something has been and who may have touched it and kept it, or got it as a gift, who had loved it.

 

When I decided to open my store, I was perplexed a long time about what to call it. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law were trying to help me. We thought of many names but none seemed to fit. Taking a break from just wracking our brains, I told them the story of the attic at Aunt Maudie's house and as I ended the story, I noticed they both were just looking at me, kinda sideways. "Really Lynn, that story could have saved us a lot of thinking, it seems kinda obvious don't you think?" said Joyce. We all had a good laugh about it and Aunt Maudie's Attic was born!