My family has always valued their history. For years it's been the case that if I go in the basement, I am seeing a family ‘relic’ here, an ‘heirloom from your ancestors’ there. Some I understand, like my grandpa’s saxophone. He was a musician like my dad so I can understand my dad keeping it for inspiration or something like that, but there has been one I never understood why we have. My great grandma’s broom. It always sits in the same corner of the dining room. To functional to get rid of but too old to dare use. It’s been there since I have been, and it never changed shape or condition. When my grandpa shows me photos of relatives when I visit her house it is always there. Sitting in the corner is the broom. As if a silent reminder of a mystery long forgotten. Yet at the same time the only mystery about it is why I am spending my time writing a memoir about a household appliance. I remember probably sometime during middle school I asked my dad about it, to which he said that it had been with my family for around a hundred years, and he had inherited it from his grandma when she passed, as he was the oldest and kept the most in touch with her. He told me of how it reminds him of her, and how it is the closest thing to her he still has. While I still have many questions like why he got a broom of all things instead of like her TV or cabinet, and why he placed it so I have to look at it while I’m eating my dinner, from finding it appear in so many family photos to having it with me all my life, I think I am beginning to see why my dad has kept it after all this time.

– James Bissell

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more