Objects of the past on display

Origami from the 1800s, part of Jennifer Gallant's collection.

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What does a New England seafarer bring home from the orient? How did grandma spend time in her late years? Which farm chore was for the “girls”? 

You can visualize the past at the Bay Antiques & Vintage Show, on Saturday, March 2, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, March 3, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The location is Bay High School, 29230 Wolf Road. This is the 50th anniversary of this fundraising event for Bay High scholarships, hosted by the Bay Village Women’s Club.

To celebrate the anniversary, Club members will bring their own antiques to display, along with the dealers selling jewelry, shabby chic, home décor, toys and much more. The display provides a window to the past, along with the item’s story.

That seafarer: He brought home origami, folded papers of animals and people. China originated paper around 100 A.D. By the 6th century, Buddhist monks brought this expensive-to-create paper to Japan which folded shapes for religious ceremonies. The Japanese originated the name origami (“oru” meaning to fold, and “kami” for paper) which in the 1600s became a recreational art form.

The display at the Antiques Show will include framed origami from the 1800s brought by the seafarer to his children in New England. Eventually his ancestors passed this collection on to Jennifer Gallant of Bay Village due to her interest in and collection of paper art. Jennifer notes the bright reds and blues have faded but are still clearly visible.

That grandma: Born in 1877, she retired as secretary of a private girls' school. Always punctual, she kept on her secretary desk an ornate clock from the early 1900s. At that desk she whiled away the hours playing solitaire, until her death in 1955. The clock remains in the family.

The girls on the farm: One of their tasks was churning the butter in a wooden churn from the 1920s. In the summer when the cows were out to pasture, the butter was a rich yellow; in the winter when they ate hay, the butter was pale. Dad sat on the milking stool, his cheek resting against the cow's warm flank, rhythmically milking into a big pail and giving a kitten or two a squirt now and then while the cow ate hay or chewed her cud. Upon selling the farm, the daughter rescued the churn for the sake of the vivid memories of aching arms and getting splashed in the eye when trying to peer down the churn’s hole. Is it butter yet?