A Letter to Dad
Norry Stories #1
Stan
7/24/2024


Welcome to Norry Stories, the official blog for Norry Treasures!
We'll talk about the items that we love to collect... give you more information about those items...update you on the shop... and let you know what we’re up to!
One of the things that I wanted to do for our first blog post was to write about something that both Cindy and I feel strongly about about.
As we buy and sell items, one thing that we’re always aware of is that every single vintage item we acquire was once owned, used, and cherished by another person.
Somebody’s mother bought that vase on her vacation. Someone’s father gave that clock to them as a birthday present. A grandmother owned these kitchen utensils and made dinner with them every Sunday for her family. A little brother got this game for Christmas when he was seven.
And now, for whatever reason, those presents, those collections, those MEMORIES are being let go. Maybe the person has passed, maybe they need to down size, or maybe (sadly) it’s just that no one is around to care anymore.
But whatever the reason, those memories have now come into our hands. They have become our TREASURES, our Norry Treasures. And we feel a certain responsibility to treat them with respect, and to occasionally share those memories that we have inherited along with the item we have brought into our shop.
A recent example of what I’m talking about involves a purchase I made at an estate sale.
Among the glassware and trinkets in box lots, I found some old cards and letters. Christmas cards once sent from family and friends in the 1930s. Birthday greetings from parents. Congratulations on the birth of a child. All saved carefully, kept away for decades in a drawer, and now entrusted to the care of a stranger.
Me.
This is one of those letters. I want to share it here, with all of you, on this our first blog post:
“June 14, 1950
Dear Dad,
I am sending you this rather than a gift or a card because no gift or card could express the gratitude I feel toward you for all you have given me.
You have generously and unselfishly put me through many years of education, often at expense, physical or material, to yourself and Mother. I may not have been the most expensive son that walked the Earth , but I wasn’t the cheapest by a long shot. With all the material things you gave me, you also gave me practical, worthwhile, down-to-earth advice which has proved to be invaluable.
And now you and Mother are making it possible for Ellie and me to start our married life early - earlier than would ever be possible without your understanding and generosity.
You have meant a great deal to me Dad, more than I probably have ever shown, because growing boys just don’t show those things! You have given me everything a fellow could ask for, and then just a little bit more. I only hope that I can do the same for my sons.
For all of those things Dad, the tangible and the intangible I am deeply grateful and will be eternally indebted to you.
Your son,
Irv”
I’m keeping that letter. I don’t know who Irv was. But I do know that he loved his father and his father loved him.
And that his father kept that letter safe until he was no longer around to do so.
And that makes this letter a Treasure I’m happy to hold onto for them.
Thanks, Irv.
Thanks, Treasure Hunters.
See you next week!

