Posted 10 years ago
Aspasias_A…
(14 items)
I am so very excited to have stumbled across this Awesome Website! For a few years now, I have been placed in charge of sorting and categorizing of our family's vast estate. Let me begin with this particularly charming item. I desperately want to know more about it! I categorized it as a stuffed animal, but truthfully, it is not stuffed in the traditional sense of the word, it seems to me to be a piece of foam that was cut into the shape of a fish and colored. It measures about 13" x 4" inches and there is some brown bits on his belly, towards his tail, that may or may not have been some form of identification...Regardless, will absolutely love to know more!! Thank you!!
If you don't know what you have and don't know what it is made of.....how did you establish the fact that it is an antique?
Hi fhrjr2 - please read my profile for your answer :-)
Thanks for your interest!
OK, your profile blows your own horn about being affluent and a Catholic (which I will forgive). It doesn't answer the question. Plush fish and cabin fish are common on the cape. I seriously doubt this one would qualify because no affluent Catholic would own one.
Okay this one is quite unusual...looks foam which wouldn't make it too old...could be for fishing??? Just something someone made? Craft piece? Fishing joke? So odd. Hmmmm....
fhrjr2, I am rather certain you are purposely being hurtful and I do not understand why? Have I offended you in some fashion, although I can’t imagine how? Perhaps you are implying that I don't have the appropriate "street cred" to make a simple inquiry on this collector’s website? I had not realized that it was necessary to prove that my family’s object is an antique. I foolishly assumed that my word was sufficient. Honestly, how many “imposters” are out there requesting information on an object? It’s not as if I am attempting to sell an imitation, now is it? I am innocently requesting information. What on earth do you presume my end game to be? Ha! If only I had such time to waste! As you have accused me of “tooting my own horn,” where I clearly had not, please allow me to do so now.
Firstly, I was born in MA in 1975 and only have early childhood memories of both the South Boston, MA property and of my grandfather, the only surviving member of his large, elite, Irish-Catholic family that resided there from mid/late-19th century, forward (aside from my father, who incidentally, never lived on the property). I was 6 when we moved to NH following my grandfather’s passing at the age of 88. We remained in NH while my father’s mother, my nana, subsequently moved into the South Boston property and took possession of all of its contents and got immediately busy “altering” the past of my father’s family and busily constructing a family picture that never existed. Technically speaking, although my father’s mother, my nana was the first “stranger” to live in that home since well over a century! Simply speaking, 99% of the home’s income is comprised of antiques. Regardless, we’ll return to this matter and what motivated her odd behavior later.
Secondly, I practically grew up with my nana, first in her humble estate in Roxbury, MA (paid for by my grandfather and where she raise my father), and then in the impressive Southie estate, and was generally familiar with the “gyst” of her possessions. Being a city gal at heart, I truly preferred her urban setting to the one of my father’s huge country farm, where I slaved away caring for the property and animals. I was delighted when the opportunity came for me to join her in Southie so that I could attend the prestigious Newman Predatory Academy located in Boston’s Back Bay. When I returned to NH 2 years later (1 year spent in CA exploring my options after high school) to attend UNH, my family had thankfully given up on the actual farming of the land and caring for stock. My father was a city boy at heart, like me. However, I stayed with my nana every single chance I could. I was initiated into Phi Beta Kappa, made the Deans List every time, earned both my BA & MA in Classical and Medieval History, and minored in Humanities and Museum Studies. I won’t bore you with the year that I was an exchange student studying at the Regents College in London, UK, nor my many international explorations, nor the brief internship I thoroughly enjoyed at the prestigious British Museum. Whilst pursuing my degrees in NH, I interned at over a dozen museums and historical properties on both sides of the NH, MA border, primarily researching and cataloging a plethora of various objects. However, I never once saw a single object such as this foam fish, not in this country or any other that I managed to visit, of which is, of course, the main reason for this abbreviated autobiography. Perhaps you are still hesitant to believe that I am able to correctly recognize an antique when I see one, allow me to continue then…
Although I am not familiar with your argument that there is some known correlation between plush fish, cabin fish and Catholics, although I am certain that there is not one. Perhaps you were trying to be humorous, as a novice stand-up comedian, I truly appreciate and encourage all forms of humor...alas, your attempt, if it was an attempt at humor that is, rather than what appears to be, an obnoxiously tacky, lowbrow, and poorly delivered insult, it was lost on me due to your overall tone.
In 2007 I moved to Phoenix, AZ, motivated to do everything possible in order to minimize the critical educational gap that affects far too many Arizonian students when compared to the nation’s majority. I teach History at the junior high level and also volunteer my free time at local and government sponsored museums, revising and updating archaic/unfamiliar terminology used in labels, signs and other museum literature, so that these necessary institutions continue to "speak to and teach" the ever growing and changing modern museum goer; updating them, if you will.
Considering that I spent over 3 decades bridging the gap between MA & NH (thus being overly familiar with an enormous amount of "things" with a New England providence, not to mention familiarity with much more outside of New England), my recollection, vague as it is, of my family’s objects, accompanied by the fragmentary documentation and other such evidence with my own explorations of the home, my considerable educational and occupational growth and experiences, and my continuing work in the field of researching and identifying objects for museums and for fun, I hope that I can be taken at my word when I say that this is an antique and I do not have a clue regarding its origin or date, but I do know that it had to belong to someone who lived in this property at one point, and the last family member who was connected to this property (besides myself, and it’s not mine), was my father who was born in 1949 and never actually lived there, leaving me to believe that it was another’s, prior to that year.
After my grandfather passed, my nana maintained the South Boston property where I regularly explored the multiple rooms and studying all of the many treasures within it; although much of it remained a mystery to me, as my nana, unbeknownst to me until much later in my life, had a great many secrets that she was hiding within and protected them by restricting my movement throughout the home by instructing me to always remain in my room until she was awake and able to monitor and/or curtail my explorations of the large home, which I of course, obeyed, most of the time. I stayed in the same guest room that had a wonderful walk-in closet, filled with gorgeous and like-new vintage women’s clothing and hats, oh the hats were so wonderful, spanning the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. I so loved dressing up and play acting in front of the full-length mirror. Good times!
I knew her that her overtly smothering ways were odd, but doesn’t every family have their oddities? Plus I didn’t see the point in upsetting her, especially as I had once before and quite innocently as a teenager. I was unable to sleep one night, and despite her strict orders to never leave the room until she was awake, I went downstairs to the 2nd floor library, there was a 1st floor library as well, and I spent several hours cleaning and organizing, best as I could, everything within. There were no personal documents that I found in that room, despite my hopes to do so, but when my nana came down and saw what I did, dared to leave my room without her company, she was furious with me, despite all of my hard work and intended outcome. Needless to say, I never disobeyed her again, and sadly lost any real opportunity to better understand her chaotic arrangement of the house and where she squired things away or what, if any of the numerous pieces of unclear and unlabeled papers, pics, etc. were even relevant in any way.
After she died, my father instructed me to find all of her fine jewels, as she had fantastic stuff that she stopped wearing about 15 years ago, and she had never told my father what she had done with them or left him any type of instructions of where to find them. For all he knew, she had sold them long ago, as she took odd delight in implying towards her last few years. But I knew my nana and I know there was no way that she would ever sell the giant diamond rock that my grandfather had given her, it was, after all, her only physical evidence that he cared about her and that they had been “married.” I had nearly given up, having spent 2 hours going through her bedroom looking for the jewelry. I grabbed her chair from the vanity and moved across the room to a set of built in shelves, intending to use it in order to get a better look at a space above me. When I stood on the chaid, the seat pad slipped beneath me and after inspecting it, I discovered one of the coolest chairs I’ve ever seen, it hid a secret compartment in which she had hid all of the jewels within. My father was quite pleased with my discovery and one mystery, at least, was solved. I’m simply trying to get across my families, and my grandfather was not very different from her in this matter, neurotic addiction to secrets.
Regardless, I promised to return to the matter of my nana, the outsider, and the property. My grandfather was the youngest of his Irish-Catholic family of 5 and was not only born in America, rather than Ireland, but also the only one who had an offspring. I have very distant memories of my great aunt, but I only met her on a handful of occasions before she passed, his 3 other siblings had passed before I was born. Allow me to simplify a rather lengthy and convoluted (albeit fascinating, in my humble opinion) tale. My grandfather was an absolutely brilliant, albeit, conflicted man. He was extremely close to his brother and at least 1 of his 3 sisters (evidenced by the few letters I’ve found, diary entry fragments, book dedications, stories told by my father, along with a delightful mixture of half-truths and lies told by my nana, and of course, by my own memories, albeit I didn’t truly understand what I knew until much later in life), they, like him, were, at least publically, very popular, very influential, politically connected, successful, very well off, and of course, so very, very Catholic. Privately, they were very pagan. I only have a handful of written evidence where they refer to themselves, or each other, as pagans; although it is far more likely that they were actually Atheists or Agnostic.
Regardless, they were highly respected by all who knew them and they made great efforts to appear to all as the pious, observant Irish Catholics that they were expected to be and of course what their mother expected of them…perhaps even demanded? As you know, they did not live during a time of religious freedom and exploration. He, as did his siblings, I assume, practiced Catholicism loudly, proudly, and very publically. His mother actually forced him to remain a bachelor, as the love of his life for many years, was a…GASP…practicing Protestant, and Protestants did not marry Catholics. Soon after his mother died however, his lover converted to Catholicism and they finally married right away. How long she waited for him is unclear but it does seem to be the case, from what I have gathered, that she was no longer able to conceive my grandfather an heir, a true Catholic dilemma, indeed!
Their marital bliss was sadly short lived due to my grandfather’s chance meeting of my nana at some wartime gala reuniting men who, like my grandfather, had served in WWI. She was 30 years his senior and quite the fox, in every meaning of the word. She was a certified nurse and had just returned from serving in the military herself as a lieutenant nurse during the Pacific Theatre of WWII, where she earned the Purple Heart, amongst other such honors. It seems that my nana, unlike my grandfather’s wife, was very fertile and despite his married status (to be fair, no one knows when nana found out about his wife), as well as her knowledge of birth control (she was a lieutenant nurse after all), she ended up pregnant with my father.
Now what’s a popular, respected and married Catholic man supposed to do in 1949? Send his wife to Florida and continue to support her fully, apparently, as that is what he did. I had no way of knowing it back then, but I had met his exiled wife at his funeral. She rode with us in the limo to the cemetery and she sat next to my nana at the honored pew reserved for his wife. My nana always claimed to be my grandfather’s wife, even going into lengthy “recollections” of the joyous event. Needless to say, I was confused for a long time. Eventually, my father told me that my grandfather had an affair with my nana, sent his wife away in order to raise his love child with nana, albeit they maintained separate properties, also paid for by grandfather, and he really did not spend a whole lot of time raising his son (advocating the substitution of money and worldly comforts for love), even more shocking, there have always been unconfirmed rumors of my grandfather’s infidelity with other women besides my nana!
As I said earlier, my nana never lived in Southie until after my grandfather died, permitting him to remain seen as an upright Catholic, raising his only son, alone after his wife supposedly died. I’ve often wondered why his wife, who ironically survived him, never fought for a piece of the ancestral home. After all, she was his legal wife, not my nana, but as far as I know, she didn’t and my nana got everything. I can only assume that there was some back room arrangement made, but I am clueless as to what. I have no idea how he explained my nana to people, or how he explained their relationship or his son to people. What I do know is that my grandfather proudly claimed my father as his son and heir and that he most certainly did not practice what he preached.
Let me also spare you the story of how my nana, a practicing attorney herself at the time of my grandfather’s death, sued my father, also an attorney by then, in order “steal” the inheritance that his father had just left him. She lost and we just moved on as if nothing happened, perhaps my father knows, but no one has ever bothered to tell me why she, not my grandfather’s legal spouse, sued her son for his father’s inheritance.
I was living in Phoenix when my nana passed away in 2010 and I was only able to take off 3 days from work. My father told me to take whatever I wanted from the property before he sold the property. I spent every single moment of those days and nights to sift through the 3 floor home (not including the sizeable basement or the widow’s peak) that was stuffed to the brims with a mind numbing amount of various objects and papers; and if there had been any order to it whatsoever, my nana took it with her to the grave.
I wish I had more time to go through everything but I know that my father had to sell it as soon as possible and close the painful chapter of his childhood. Ironically, my father is as pagan as one can get, worshipping Norse gods, praying to the elements, and when he’s not practicing law, he’s a professional stage magician with a fantastic act with his wife as an assistant.
There is so much that I don’t know about my family and their belongings, and I never will, but God help me, I will find out the story behind this damn fish with or without your assistance!
P.S. I began this response feeling very annoyed with you. That was hours ago. Now, I am enjoying an odd sense of peace. I suppose, as this is this is the first time I actually sat down, worked through, and recorded the tale of the chaotic family on my father’s side, you should hear my mother’s side of the family story …wow! I want to thank you for allowing me to vent so, in a sense, for I am now enjoying my own, long overdue cathartic sensation.
Looks foam to me? Craft? Folk Art? For Fishing lure type (use for trolling for Fish)?? I have no idea....
Is the stuffing Foam too?
I wonder if you contact a Decoy/fishing place if they have any ideas or have seen something like this. I too have contacted a place to get info to get info or they know where to direct me too.....as I have some weird things here too (going through parents Estate stuff too)....and sometimes I draw a total blank on something here too. happens to all of us sometimes....LOL
wow, thats quite a story, very interesting family!
like any good read, can't wait for the next chapter!
sorry I can't help with the fish, but oved your post.
good luck on your quest!
Thanks for the tip antiquerose!
pickrknows, you made me smile! I write for a living but it was the first time I wrote one of my own stories, and not someone elses :-)
Thanks for the helpful tips, all! I finally discovered that this wee fish is a joke magic production item from the 50s or 60s.