GARTH’S AUCTIONS
“Biography of an Object” Writing Contest
The Desk Chair
Written By: Isabelle B. of Raleigh, North Carolina
My fingers found their way along the chair's beautiful back panels, mahogany patina worn smooth by the touch of so many hands over so many years. The silk damask cushion, lovely and threadbare by years of use in my grandfather's house, beckoned my touch. How appropriate that this careworn family piece from before my grandfather's childhood would welcome me so in my own growth to adulthood. How ironic that this chair held onto my grandfather's last secret. My own memories filled my vision:
Sweeping my skirts aside as I hopped onto the stone steps of his Philadelphia townhome, I peered through the glass panes into grandfather's study. How well I recognized the wide shoulders of the man standing forcefully before him, his hands gesturing strongly as he made his point. But why was my father speaking so emphatically to my grandfather?
The old man, with a quiet strength, listened without responding. My father suddenly turned away, leaving grandfather sitting upright in his desk chair. As father collected me from the steps, it was clear he was still conducting his argument. "I can't understand why you won't involve yourself in such important issues in our country's time of need". And with that comment, did I really see Grandfather turn his face to me and wink?
As I walked to Rittenhouse Square, I heard adults stridently discussing the latest war news. Still thinking of my father’s concerns, I entered Grandfather's warm paneled study with its comforting desk and chair. The chair was a sturdy piece of dark mahogany, its open back intricately fashioned like rivulets of wood. It had been in this very house when Grandfather was a boy at the dawn of the 19th century. Originally commissioned by his father as a new Nation was born, Grandfather as a young man had appropriated the chair as his own. I liked to think that when he sat in it to do business at his desk, it reminded him of his youth, secrets and whispers hidden within. Only now do I understand how much truth lay in these imaginings.
I cleared my throat at the doorway and walked into the study. Grandfather's focused features softened as he
saw me, and he looked up from transcribing a long list onto creamy paper. I kneeled next to his desk chair and put my hands on his knees. "Papa, why won't you help with the war and those poor people?" My grandfather's eyes wandered towards the papers on his desk, and when he looked back to me, there was fire in his eyes, but he said nothing. As he lifted me lovingly into his lap, I wondered how someone so strong could simply stand by and watch. As my Grandfather’s century came to a close, I found myself once more at the stone steps of his house. More properly, my house, for he'd named me as his heir. Sunlight caught dust motes mid‐dance as I untied my bonnet and walked in. I shook my head to free it of the ghosts lurking in my memory. Though I was now a matronly middle age, I didn't feel much different from the young girl waiting outside her grandfather's study. My breath caught in my throat and my face grew hot as I entered that familiar room. I almost expected to see him sitting at his desk. I touched the mahogany chair, surprised to find it was warm with an inner energy. As I sat down, the cushion let out a crinkling noise. I put my hands to my face and found that my cheeks were wet. I hurriedly left the study, and didn't return until a month
later. On a whim, I’d decided to re‐upholster my grandfather's desk chair, matching the worn damask.
Setting to work, once again I was surprised to find that the cushion crackled to the touch. I gently lifted a corner of the damask. Lodged between the cushion and webbing were yellowing papers with my grandfather's scroll marching neatly across it. My eyes hungrily read name after name, each name with a date and age on the same line. It suddenly made sense ‐ why my grandfather was so reticent about discussing abolition and emancipation, and why he couldn’t answer my father’s challenge to help the war effort. I found one more paper, this more like a diary entry in shaky script, dated one month before my grandfather’s death at age ninety five. It told of an operation known as the "Underground Railroad", and that my grandfather's house had been one stop on it. To think that this very house had been an escape route for slaves trying to leave the Southern plantations and find freedom in thenorth! My breath caught in my chest ‐ how could my father and l have been so blind all of those years before? Of course my grandfather helped the war, but more importantly our Nation, in a way neither Father or I had the courage to imagine, much less act upon.
Grandfather secreted two more treasures that had remained hidden in the chair ‐ one was a daguerreotype of
my father as a young boy, another was a picture of my grandfather and me sitting together in the mahogany chair, papers and lists tidily arrayed on the desktop. I smiled with the recognition of Grandfather’s wisdom and foresight. How could he have known it would be me who would uncover his patriotic actions? I thought of that secret wink so long ago. Some of the people my grandfather helped through the Underground Railroad settled right here in Philadelphia, and I have been able to locate their descendants. Nestled carefully in the re‐upholstered cushion of our chair, I replaced the photo of Grandfather and I at the desk, hoping to one day fill the chair with my own secrets. Framed next to the desk is a that list of names on century‐old ledger papers in the photograph, testimony to Grandfather’s quietly noble heroism.
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