Family Heirlooms Quotes

There are three things to leave behind; your photographs, your library, and your personal journals. These things are certainly going to be more valuable to future generations than your furniture!

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them.

I can imagine in years to come that my papers and memorabilia, my journals and letters, will find themselves always in the company of people who care about many of the things I do.

My most cherished possessions are my grandma's letters and my vintage Martha Washington cookbook.

All my jewelry has stories.

I'd experienced the '40s and '50s by looking at my grandparents' old clothes, books, and magazines.

For my 50th birthday, my cousin Helmut gave me the most profound, beautiful, and striking present. He made books out of my dad's slide photographs, which were stored and forgotten. Looking at those books made me cry.

I don't think there's any better present than something passed down from your mama, no matter what it is.

If I'm going to try and find something, I stick to the flea markets, or I pull hand-me-downs from my family because I like pieces to have stories.

I don't like to look back. I love the next challenge and don't keep awards. There are a few that are really important, but my parents have most of them.

My son is a tree surgeon and gets me a lovely tree. I like to put it up early, as I can't wait for Christmas. We dress it with decorations that have been in the family for years.

I have a great-great-great-grandfather who was a Confederate cavalry colonel, and I still have his military composite photo on my wall. The chemicals in the photo tint have changed over the years to the point that he looks green. One of my family members apparently still has the piece of paper that listed every thing in his pocket when he got shot.

I wish to be put away in a western dress I designed, with my daughter's little gold cross necklace and my son's small white testament in my hands, and my wedding band on.

My mother handed down all these amazing scarves from the sixties and seventies, and I have a hundred of them.

Personally, I wear a lot of my mother-in-law's chiffons and my mother's silk. But when I buy saris for myself, then they have to be understated.

I own a shameless number of ethnic necklaces acquired at local markets in developing countries or inherited from my grandmother. These have seen me through meetings in Davos and visits to refugee camps.

It's very likely that graduates, current employees and retirees have some wonderful pieces of Deer Park history in their closets or garages.

I have a memory of my mother kneeling in front of a cabinet in our home, tenderly cradling her wedding china. We never used the plates; she died in her 40s without ever letting herself enjoy these gorgeous pieces. I told myself that I would use my precious items.

Sometimes a single item can wrap up, in a nutshell, who a person is. In my grandparents' home, a clear plastic container was enthroned on top of the mahogany bar for at least a decade. Painted on the lid in pink, yellow and light blue was 'Have a Nosh With Mort & Ethel'.

The most important thing you leave behind is the stuff that turns into treasures when children find it

Well, my parents were sort of packrats. They never threw anything away and, all through their time together, they stored away various things in a vault.

My aunt Caroline was really a character. She lived and worked in my grandfather's old house and even wore some of his clothes.

Both me and Ishmeet were very naughty. We used to have my grandfather's swords in the house. We used to take all these swords and take all the showpieces Mom had and slice them one by one. He actually locked my nana in the kitchen once for two hours.

I sometimes look at my bookshelves today and wonder which volumes my sons will treasure in twenty or thirty years. Which should I be saving for them? Which will fade with time?

My dad has totally taken my Cat Stevens T-shirt, but it's OK; I have his Black Flag one, and that's amazing.