Dining Room Corner

My mother’s family were savers, but my dad leaned more toward collecting. I’m not sure it that was an inherited quality or not and, in reality, he didn’t ‘collect’ as much as he ‘acquired.’ That is, he didn’t actively go on the hunt, but if he saw something that took his fancy, he was likely to get it – especially when it came to cut glass and elephants.

Actually, he liked any kind of glassware – cut, pressed, cranberry, depression, crystal. I think there are examples of all of those in our house. He especially liked the way the sun played with the bowls and water jugs in the dining room window. In later life he took to hanging prisms in the east windows to catch the morning sunrises.

Elephants on the March

He also had an eye for cloisonné and inlay work and other decorative art forms. I wonder what interesting pieces would grace our house had he ever had the money to indulge in his interests. Mostly, though, we have elephants.

It was only the elephants that Dad ever called a “collection.” He probably had several dozen – some large, some tiny, many hand-carved of wood or ivory or jasper or some other material he thought interesting. I think he acquired the majority of them before I ever came along. I always remember there being elephants in the house.

Mostly, they were in the east room – the room that was called the nursery by my mother and her siblings and the room the folks later referred to as “the Victorian Room.” But there were elephants in other places, too – on Dad’s dresser, on one of the library shelves and one, as I recall, on the mantle of the biggest upstairs guest room.

Elephants in the Curio Cabinet

When Nyel and I moved into the house, I culled the herd. The largest (and most difficult to find a place for) were carefully packed away. The unusual ones went into a curio cabinet that hangs on the wall and just under it, marching along the ledge that separates the wainscoting from the wallpaper, are the tiniest ones.

I don’t know why I never asked Dad about any of those elephants – how he got started and why elephants. They were always “in the room” but not in a bad way. They were just one of the many things that I took for granted and now that I’m curious about them, it’s too late to ask.