The adventure began when we won a lottery to participate in the first ever D.C. filming of PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. “What will we take?” I asked my husband. “They want each of us to bring two authentic antiques,” he quipped. “For starters, we’ll bring each other.”

In fact, Jay and I have spent swathes of our marriage cleaning out the attics of my parents, his mother and stepfather and his beloved grandma. So we had plenty of antiques to choose from – material things we’ve tried to steward wisely while often feeling bogged down by the responsibility to “carry on the names and places” of our ancestors. Not realizing that 5,000 tickets had been issued (with 23,000 competing for a spot) I started imagining our items being chosen, how I would coif my hair and the blue outfit I would wear (best color for TV).

With a lot of help and laughter from our friends, we finally chose our four items – by oldest dates and what could best withstand transportation by foldable shopping cart on the Metro, since our ticket stipulated we’d be standing in long lines best navigated with wheels. How carefully we wrapped our treasures and propelled them through the crowds headed for the bowels of the D.C. Convention Center, where the temperature stood at around 64 degrees. Shivering in light summer attire, we slowly moved through those predicted lines sharing stories about our belongings and guessing who would be the day’s “winners” to appear on national television. 

Our first designated appraisal stop was at Books and Manuscripts. Our expert appeared to be yawning as we approached, so reflexively we started apologizing about John Foxe’s 1583 edition of The Book of Martyrs. “It’s a little the worse for wear,” Jay mumbled.
“THAT’S an understatement! This would be of value only if it had belonged to King Henry VIII,” said our appraiser. We quickly produced our 1747 original deed and plat for property believed to have belonged to the Treadwells in lower Manhattan on Bowery between 1st and 6th streets. Appearing thoroughly bored by now, Manuscript Man said,  “Seems to me I’ve heard of the Bowery. You might want to insure this for $1,000 even though it’s not worth much money.” We wished we could roll these first two items to the nearest dumpster instead of wheeling them home again.

The Decorative Arts appraiser was young and bright-eyed and interested in the family lore about our “Pilgrim Mirror” – how the swain wishing to court his sweetheart would place the small mirror on her family’s dining room table and if she looked at her reflection her answer was “Yes!” to his pursuit. Turning our prize over once or twice, our expert looked distressed. “Oh, I’m SO sorry, just SO sorry to tell you that even though the story is great this mirror never belonged to pilgrims; in fact, I believe it was made around 1830, probably in England, and is worth about $80,” he said. As I comforted him by promising that his assessment didn’t offend us, I secretly thought we’d keep telling our story as it had been passed on to us by Grandma.

Our last treasure, a pewter plate Jay’s mother had believed to be valuable, was deemed “about as Art Nouveau as Art Nouveau can be” and worth about a week’s worth of groceries for a family of four. Back it went to the bottom of our cart for stabilization of our belongings on the ride home.

Despite the poor financial news, we came away from our Sunday afternoon at Antiques Roadshow rich in learning: We were astounded by the degree of emotional energy every one of us had invested in the things we waited for our appraisers to praise. We mused over how often we human beings come to value ourselves by what we own. We likened this phenomenon to the rich man, who turned away shocked and grieving when Jesus asked him to sell his possessions, give his money to the poor and come and follow him. (Mark 10:17-27)

Discovering that our well-protected treasures really aren’t worth much is extraordinarily freeing – as if a great burden has been lifted from our shoulders and we are lightened up to honor our ancestors in a different way. My fall de-cluttering project involves giving away the things that have no family history that we know of, while telling and writing the stories we do know about our inherited gifts and the people who preserved them for us and our children to pass on, generation to generation. 

Margaret M. “Peggy” Treadwell, LICSW, is a family, individual and couples therapist and teacher in private practice.  She can be contacted at  PeggyMcDT@gmail.com