This is where Bill and I stayed when we were up at Grandma's this past weekend. It's a beautiful old Inn and reasonably affordable. We had dinner and breakfast there. Dinner was good, but the power went out 1/2 way through and it took forever to get through the meal even though the power came back within minutes. Breakfast was better. They don't seem to embrace the concept of lean foods so my diet went to all hell. The Inn upgraded our room free to a room with a terrace which was very nice of them, but since it was stormy the terrace did us little good.
My Grandma's caregiver let us into the house when we arrived Saturday at 5 p.m., but when we told her we were there to collect family photos and documents she started balking. She played the "it's sabbath and we don't work on sabbath" card on me, which I chose to respect assuming that if I pissed her off I would have little success getting the things from the house at all. This woman talked my Grandma into signing the house over to her, so technically I was in her house. She asked us to come back on sunday late in the afternoon, which I explained was really inconvenient since we had an 8 hour drive back after we loaded up the items from Grandma's. We chatted for a few minutes and then Bill and I went to the hotel for the evening.
I called my Dad and my Aunt that night and told them both to send L (the caretaker) an email giving their permission to remove Grandma's property. They are her only remaining children. L told us her phone wasn't working due to the storm, but her dial up internet service seemed to work fine. I'm sure it was a ploy to try to avoid giving out the property.
After a late breakfast we stopped by a grocery store to pick up large plastic bags to wrap everything in so it wouldn't be ruined by the rain. On the way back to Grandma's house we took these pictures.
The lady who lived here had just walked out the front door when the Redwood came down on her house. It's a complete loss and they had just cut up and dragged away the tree when I took this picture.
This was a grove of Redwoods just about 1/2 mile before the house that the tree destroyed.We showed up at Grandma's and were let in, which I had worried might not be the case. L had been up all night gathering things for us to take. I suspect she also spent some of that time hiding things, since I noticed certain things had gone missing since the previous evening. I chatted with her, resisting the urge to grill her about the missing items, hoping to talk her into giving up more things. I asked about the family Bible which wasn't in the things she had volunteered. She showed it to me and asked if I wanted to copy some dates out of it, but I told her I would just take the Bible, thank you. I also asked her about the books, which I was certain my Grandma would have, and she reluctantly showed me a section of books she said were hers. I again suspect that many of the other books on bookshelves were Grandma's, but needed to remain diplomatic to get things from her.
Meantime her and Bill kept exchanging dirty looks. She considered him an interloper and he considered her the same and worse. He kept grabbing anything that looked remotely old and taking it to the car. We ended up also getting my great grampa's fiddle, an old harmonica, old LP records of which one was recorded by my uncle who has passed on, hand made quilts, very old books and a few other knicknacks. I asked about the will, but was told by L that it didn't exist and anyhow, my Grandma had told her that the house and everything in it was to go to L. She pointed out that she owned all the family pictures and documents and was graciously giving them to me.
By the time we left I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I just wanted to crawl into the car and start babbling unintelligently. I had managed to hold my temper and it had yielded a sizeable windfall of family heirlooms. I did have to leave a chest that great grampa made, but with a promise from L that she would reliquish it to me or another family member at a later date.
I'm still sorting through the pile of things heaped in my living room. I promised my Dad and Aunt that I would scan everything scanable and send all original photos and documents to my Aunt since the climate in AZ is better for preserving them. I'll document the other items with digital photos. I'm going to create a website and post all of this on it so that cousins and other far flung relatives can print of copies of the pictures, etc and make claims for any of the items if they feel they are entitled.
All the while I am still working on my wedding plans.
