Modern Hill Woman

If lovin’ junk is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

My love of junk (antiques) started as a small child going to auctions with my parents. We were poor so they probably went out of necessity or maybe they just liked the thrill of the hunt. Daddy bought tools and man stuff; mom loved dishes and glassware. My favorite doll, Mary Jane, came from an auction.

Sometimes we’d travel to Doniphan to the sale barn. There were animals, produce, and junk for sale. Sometimes we were buying, sometimes we were selling. As a special treat we might get a hamburger from the little restaurant there. Their burgers were almost as good as the ones at the Rock House Cafe in Grandin (now Lil Black River Cafe) that my sister Flossie Phillips owned. 

On Thursdays the Thrift Shop in Grandin was open for business. We went there almost every week. It was owned by a local church and run by a group of volunteers who were older ladies. The place was packed full of stuff that people had donated so you never knew what you might find there. When you walked through the door it smelled of treasure and whatever was cooking for lunch on the stove in the back room. Besides being a kitchen,  that was where the ladies quilted for people. There was always a quilt stretched on the frame and they sat back there stitching and talking when they didn’t have customers.

If our sister Flossie was there, we might venture into the back room to sit quietly, hoping to hear something juicy, while the ladies quilted and gossiped and laughed. The Thrift Shop is still open on Saturdays but all of those dear ladies have passed. 

The first antique I bought with my own money was a vintage beaded black evening bag, purchased in a little junk store in Fremont that my sister Wanda and brother-in-law Rance took me to when I was around 12. My collections have grown through the years into a preservation of history. The things I’ve sold were memories, someone’s fond memories of their mother, grandparents, or childhood. Because that’s what junk is; memories.