Donkey flower pot...

Having lost my Dad, Mom and now my brother, the house has to be cleaned out. It isn't a fun thing to pick up, sort and throw out things that belonged to others. My need for more things to be added to all my other collections is not great. My wife and I have been on our own with this job for some time now and we have been avoiding going back since Christmas. We will start again, this spring, to go through the belongings and toss as much as possible. My parents didn't buy new, they in fact wore everything out rather than buying new. My mom had the same cooking pans as she had when they left the farm in 1973.
While going through things there are always surprises. Not things of great worth but things of great memories. I ran across the above ceramic piece the other day and it made me happy. I thought it was gone, it doesn't have any great value, but the memories are 56 years old.
When my dad and mom bought their farm in 1953 they moved into a very drafty cold old house. The kitchen was of what they call a part of the T shaped architecture of farm houses, it was the bottom leg of the T. When they originally built it that part, the kitchen only had six foot ceilings. I don't know why they did that as the other parts of the house had normal height or at least higher ceilings. We had a gray formica topped chrome table with vinyl and 6 chrome chairs. In the middle of that table my mom had crocheted out of variegated black and silver crochet thread a large round doily and on that doily sat this donkey and basket ceramic piece. It had a vine plant in it and it had to be taken off every meal and put back after every meal. I was a surprise that my mom still had that planter as they made two moves and things like that get tossed. I don't think she every used it after she left the farm. I found it stuffed in a linen closet stuffed under old bedding. The finding of it was great, as I have already started a collection of this kind of thing a few years back. I have been buying them at the Osceola antique store so this one fits right into the collection. I will photograph that collection sometime to share. I have a duck, cat, and various others that one could plant in if you wanted.
Back on the finding of things in a house where three people have lived. We have found an ancient cookbook that was probably in the old house my dad had to tear down in order to build his ranch house on the property. Other things like that we are finding as well as old army things from the war. One thing that we still have not found, is the picture of my grandfather in his casket. It was back in 1937 and was a common practice to do so. The caskets had a panel on the side that flipped down so a photograph could be taken. I know it is in the house somewhere, but it just hasn't shown up yet. Mom took it from her mom and hid it all the time in a clothes drawer when we lived on the farm and really didn't want anybody to see it. So it really could be stuffed somewhere strange now in the city house. One of my biggest worries is that it might have been tossed with magazines or newspapers or whatever she may have slipped it between on some shelf.
Well enough on all of this, the donkey is cute. I may research it sometime in antique sites to see if anyone else has one. I know that I will always be glad the I found it and have it. Thanks for reading...