4 minute read
Memories Restored
By Daphne Belbin Tumlin, Houston, TX, USA
In 1997, New Chelsea called her wanderers home.
The clarion call that went out must have sounded like the last roll call for my parents who had left Newfoundland in 1959, at the beginning of a mass migration to the mainland. I heard the call, too, and so did my brother, Calvin. We said we were returning to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the founding of our native land, but it was nostalgia, wistful and evocative, and ethereal voices emanating from the rocks and coves that called us home.
The Belbin home in New Chelsea
Three days of festivities concluded with a soul-binding service at the United Church that my great-grandfather had helped build in 1844. He had earned shares for his labour, and the members with the most shares got the best seats: the ones closest to the minister and the perfect distance from the hot stove. So that’s just where we sat that day. From there we could see across the harbour to the top of South Side Hill, where we were born and where our family’s house had once stood overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
After the service ended, Calvin and I walked to the site of our ancestral home to linger a while on the spot that held so many happy memories. Our cousin Ted and his wife, Susie, sat with us, enjoying the cool breeze that was gently blowing the piss-a-beds, daisies and buttercups. When the sun pried itself from the clouds, I felt its warmth on my face. It was easy to recall the saltbox house of wood and nails, cloth and paper, where we had once been held together with fish, wild berries and root vegetables. Now everything was gone except the cellar that had been hewn into the cliff.
As we visited together, Calvin saw a piece of an old iron bed poking out of the ground. We all began to claw cautiously at the earth, like an archeological dig. We unearthed the frames of two beds, four brass knobs, four spindles, two spools and three brass circles. After we assembled everything, we realized that these were the beds where our parents, grandparents, maybe even great-grandparents, had slept. We had sold the house in 1954, and the new owners must have discarded our furniture right on the hill where we were sitting. It had been buried there for 43 years.
The root cellar, near where Daphne made her discovery.
I pressed my hand firmly against the top of the rusty old bed, asking time to play back the reel from 1953 when I last lived on that hillside. In my little girl eyes, I could see the view through the double-paned bedroom windows to the ocean below. I felt as though at any moment I would run downstairs and see my mother taking fresh bread out of the oven, then slathering it with butter and molasses for me to eat. Shivers ran down my spine, and the moment felt large and mysterious. I felt both happy and sad, and for a moment I thought I might be having an out-of-body experience. The feeling of connection was transcendent, uncontrollable and irresistible. It was one of those times that my memory will never give up.
“I slept in that bed,” Calvin said, holding up an old iron bed frame and breaking my trance.
“If you listen closely enough,” my cousin Susie said, “these beds will tell you their stories.”
Although I knew that these old beds were just bits and bones of the life I had known so many years ago, I could not leave them behind. I asked my cousin, Alick Young, who lived in nearby Blaketown, to ship them to my home in Houston, Texas. He resisted, saying it would be a waste of time and money. “These beds cannot be refurbished,” he insisted, “and it will cost a fortune to crate and ship them to the United States.”
Daphne had both bed frames restored and gave one to her sister.
Pushing aside Alick’s objections like pie crumbs from a cutting board, I quickly told him that if he could not do the job, I knew someone who could. As I began to walk away, I heard him say, “Come back, my love. I’ll ship all of it if it means that much to you.”
When the beds arrived in Houston, a US customs officer called and asked me to come to the Air Canada Cargo Terminal to identify a shipment he had received. I told him it was just two old rusty beds that had been buried for over 40 years. He didn’t believe me. “Are you telling me that you paid almost $500 just to ship junk from Newfoundland to Houston?” he asked. “Yes,” I replied, “that’s just what I’m telling you.” “Well, you’ll have to prove it,” he said.
Daphne had both bed frames restored and gave one to her sister.
As I watched the US custom agent pry open the wooden boxes, I looked around to locate the handcuffs they intended to use when the counterfeit shipment was exposed. “You were right,” the customs agent said when he saw the pile of dirty, rusty frames. “This is just junk.” “It’s not junk to me,” I responded. I had the beds refinished and painted, and 22 years later one sits in my house and the other in my sister Evelyn’s house as bed-shaped paperweights, keeping what is left of our childhood from drifting away.
