The button box

I want to tell you about my grandfather’s basement and the button box because these memories are my connection to the Helitzer Bros. blouse business.

I have such a vivid memory of going into my grandfather’s basement to look in the button box.  I can see it in my mind, almost like a movie. 

I’m sure that if I had an opportunity to look at my grandfather’s basement now, it would probably seem a lot smaller.  Memories of a space always seem to be bigger.

My sister and I spent a lot of time poking around in the basement.  Here’s what I remember.  Walk down the dark stairs and pass the picture of the horse my dad painted at camp (the same horse on the cigarette box in the living room).  At the bottom of the stairs, if you turn right, there was a room with lots of shelves filled with bolts of fabrics and boxes (I don’t think I was allowed to poke around in this room).  The main basement room had a really cool bar area (look behind the bar for the red apple cookie jar).  Toward the back of the room, there was a door with a red checked curtain leading to the washing machine and dryer and shelves of pantry goods.   

I loved going into the basement to look in the button box, waiting for me on the back shelf of the main room.  Open the box and find lots and lots of buttons.  Buttons with pearls, buttons with jewels, wood buttons, red buttons, big turquoise blue buttons.  Leather buttons, little tiny blouse buttons, plain old boring buttons.  Poke a little more and find glass buttons with horses underneath the glass (those now live in my sewing box waiting for me to find that special place for them).  One day, I found a button with a clock face.  Dig a little more and find a butterfly button or a flower.  Ouch, you might get stabbed by a pin, but ignore it so that you can search some more.  Years and years of entertainment, contained in one box. 

Oh no!  I spilled the contents of the button box on the floor.  I don’t remember my grandfather yelling or what he said – I just remember picking up so many buttons. 

You might want to know what became of those buttons.  A great number of them ended up in my sewing box.  I loved those buttons so much that my grandfather must have let me take them.  Funny, I don’t really remember leaving his house with those beloved buttons. 

I don’t sew, so the buttons remain in my sewing box, waiting and waiting.  If a button falls off a blouse or a coat, I’ll open my sewing box and the first thing I see is a remaining spool of thread from my grandfather’s house (thread on a real wooden spool).  When I’m done sewing, even if I’m really busy, I always open the bottom of the box and take out the buttons.  I sift through and find the clock, the jewels, the leather ones, and the big turquoise one.  I open the little box that holds the prized glass horse buttons.  And, I wish I could ask my grandfather to tell me the story of the buttons.