Ask around and almost everybody down here has one. A quilt somebody’s grandmother pieced together from old feed sacks. A skillet black as midnight that nobody is allowed to put in the dishwasher. The cedar chest that has sat at the foot of the same bed since 1962. And somewhere, always, a shoebox full of letters.
We hang on to these things because they hold the family story. Trouble is, a Mississippi summer doesn’t care much about stories.
What the heat and the damp actually do
Start with wood. When the air is thick, it soaks up water and swells; when the A/C kicks on or a cool front blows through, it shrinks back down. Do that enough summers and the joints work loose. That’s usually why Aunt Ruth’s sideboard wobbles now.
Fabric has its own problem, and it’s mildew. Leave a quilt or a christening gown somewhere damp long enough and those little gray spots show up. Heat makes it worse. It’s the reason old white linens go yellow.
Paper might be the most fragile thing in the house. Old photographs will stick to each other in humid weather, sometimes for good, and letters left in a hot room get brittle enough to crack along the folds.
Here’s the part that stings: the attic and the backyard shed, the two places most of us stick the “keep but don’t need” boxes, are just about the worst places for them. On an August afternoon it can get well past 100 degrees up there, and then a storm rolls through and the humidity jumps. Cast iron rusts. Leather splits. Glue gives up.
So what do you do about it?
Old-timers will tell you plastic is the enemy, and they’re right about quilts. Sealed in a bin, the fabric can’t breathe and the damp has nowhere to go. Plain cotton muslin, the cheap unbleached kind from the fabric store, works better. Cardboard isn’t great either, since over enough years the acid in the box ends up in the cloth. And once in a while, take the quilt out and fold it a new way so the old creases get a rest.
Furniture is simpler. Rub on a little paste wax and keep it up off bare concrete. Two scraps of 2×4 underneath will do.
The shoebox of letters? Move them into an acid-free box from any craft store, slip tissue paper between the photos and keep the lid on. Light fades them as surely as heat does. The skillet is the easy one: dry it all the way, wipe on a little oil, done.
And when the house is full
Then there’s the day Mama sells the house. All of a sudden the dining table, the two dressers and that cedar chest have to go somewhere, and nobody has the room. Nobody’s ready to give them up yet, either. The garage looks tempting. It shouldn’t. A climate-controlled unit is the better bet, and here on the Coast, Iron Storage has climate-controlled storage units in Long Beach that will hold a houseful of pieces at a steady temperature while everyone figures out who gets what. Wrap things the way you would at home. Stop by now and then to air out the quilts.
None of it is complicated or expensive. But it’s the difference between handing the quilt down and having to explain what happened to it.
