The Hoarder and Old Age Lessons

 

Edith Hall was my grandmother's friend from forever. She never married, had what my grandmother referred to as "money." My grandmother also described her as thrifty. She recycled Christmas Cards obliterating the name of the previous sender name and adding her own.

Miss Hall was also very creative and my grandmother arranged for me to spend one afternoon a week making crafty things. The  only thing I remember making was crepe paper geraniums.

I hated being in her apartment that was chock full of everything imaginable. I didn't know the term "hoarder" at nine.

Finally I rebelled against those afternoons and nothing my grandmother could say about how happy Miss Hall was in teaching me crafts, would change my mind.

Fast forward. At 22 I was returning from Stuttgart where my husband had been in an Army band. We needed an apartment. Edith Hall's house had an upstairs apartment where my mother and father had spent the first few months of their marriage. 

It was free, cheap $80 a month. My German Shepherd, brought back from Germany would be welcome. However, it was barely possible to walk through a room. Where things had been piled as high as my calf before, now there were stacks that were taller than I was at five foot one.

I worked part time in a dry cleaner and was working on my degree at Lowell College. My husband went back to his job for the Reading Light company.

My mother gave me a spare bedroom suite. Perhaps it was cursed because every couple who slept in it ended up divorced. We bought a cheap couch and a Formica kitchen table and two chairs. other necessities were contributed from my father's, mother's and step mother's storage.

Unlike downstairs, the flat was empty. It had a spacious living room, bedroom and bathroom with a claw foot tub. There was a pantry.

The kitchen sink was pre-WWI. The stove was identical to the one pictured above - but it worked.

Downstairs it was even more crowded than when I was a child. By this time, Miss Hall was in the early stages of dementia, although I didn't know the term then. She was often terrified that someone had entered her place and had taken some treasure. 

Often I would help her look and more times than not we found the missing object.

We saved money by not having a telephone. Miss Hall let us use hers and we would battle our way through the clutter to locate the phone when we wanted to make a call. Only a few people had the number and they were told only emergency calls. We didn't want to upset Miss Hall.

We only stayed a couple of years. My ex-husband liked that the low rent meant we could live well under budget. Finally, I insisted we move to a "normal" place. 

My grandmother felt sad that her friend would no longer have someone nearby to help her. All her family was gone and she'd reached an age when most of her friends were either dead or unable or unwilling to help.

We found a tiny bungalow in back of an Italian Builder's home. They became friends. I felt relief in the new place. The rent was $125/month.

When there is a TV program about hoarders and/or dementia, I think about Miss Hall. As I age, I understand better the problem of being alone with problems, although I am surrounded by friends and loved ones and feel gratitude that I won't end up as Miss Hall but my empathy and understanding has increased ten fold. 

Where I live now there were many "mamies" or old women who were friends from their childhood days. They would put chairs on the street and chatter away. Some times they would find a bench in the village. Often they remind me of Miss Hall.

Over the years, I became friends, despite their Catalan accents and my French. I listen to their stories. Sometimes I would bring them flowers, carry their groceries. It has given me a chance to be kinder than when I was nine and in my early 20s, not for me but for them.