Down Memory "Lane" with Donna Cronk #WriterMonday

Forty-six years ago this spring, I graduated from Union County High School in east-central Indiana. Since then, a small cedar chest has gone with me everywhere I’ve lived. It remains a minor player on my heirloom roster, yet it hasn’t strayed far, and I’ve never considered ditching it.

Sometimes I keep it inside a nightstand where it rounds up odds and ends such as a packet of tissues; a pen and notepad, a tube of hotel hand cream. Other times it roosts on a closet shelf, sheltering back-up pairs of glasses.

Inside the hinged lid is a stamp:

Lane presented by
Trading Post & Guttman’s
Connersville, Indiana.

I don’t remember the moment I received it, or even how; only that it’s a high school graduation gift from the sponsors listed under the lid.

Until this spring, I’ve never mentioned the box to anyone. I wonder how many women have these keepsakes and if the topic brings back memories—especially during this season of high school graduations.

I floated the topic on social media and learned quickly it’s a subject that draws interest. And wooden-box envy, or at least some joking/not joking about it. A classmate posted said that I must be favored somehow because she never got one. Others chimed in that they didn’t receive the gifts, either, and wonder all these years later what’s up with that.

Someone in a class three years behind mine said she didn’t get one. She connected the dots between a classmate two years my senior who posted that she is a recipient. The non-recipient woman guessed that receiving one had to do with being in a particular organization. Good guess, but nope.

A little research shows that the box giveaways were part of a national advertising effort known as Lane Furniture’s Girl Graduate Plan. Boxes weren’t delivered to the schools and passed out with handshakes on a stage, nor was any merit involved. Graduating girls received certificates entitling them to the gifts by presenting the paperwork to the sponsoring retailer.

My guess is that graduates who didn’t think they got them in fact did get the certificates but those went unnoticed nor redeemed.

I have no memory of picking up the box. But I did land my first-ever full-time job in Connersville that summer. Maybe I dropped by a sponsoring store then and picked it up. More than likely, though, my mother got it for me.

New Castle, Indiana girls received their boxes, at least during one period in the 1970s, from Holthouse Furniture.

The promotion had a long run, from 1925 to 2004, with sponsoring businesses throughout the country. Girls and possibly their mothers would visit the stores, and while there, likely looked over the larger versions, the popular hope chests that were staples of the Lane Furniture Co.

The hope chests were meant as a place for a girl or young woman to deposit pretty linens, dishes, silverware, and on a more ethereal level, her hopes and dreams for finding Mr. Right and setting up a home.

What a brilliant advertising ploy: many of the girls would soon be homemakers and consumers. They would remember the furniture store that bequeathed them the gifts when the time came to furnish their homes.

When I mentioned the chests on social media, responses flooded in from women who came of age in different decades, Hoosiers, and non-Hoosiers alike, and almost all of them still have their miniature chests.

Commenting on the post were women I’ve been social media friends with for years but who never weigh in or publicly say anything on my posts. Somehow this topic hit home. Some even took the time to photograph their boxes and post them.

What’s kept inside the boxes? A bracelet collection; high school memorabilia; tea, pictures. Two said their husbands use them for storage.

What’s inside mine is rather dull to report: sample-size hotel hand lotions, lip balms, and a pair of socks for cold feet at bedtime.

The chests posted on my page appear identical to mine, only with different sponsors, depending on their locations. But an online look at a vintage miniature cedar chest reminds me of something I had long forgotten: Mom had one like it, a little bigger, with decorative hardware to resemble a pirate’s chest.

I don’t know what happened to it and that’s fine—I don’t long for it. Just curious.

If you’re a mother or grandmother with such a chest tucked away, it might be fun to gift it to a graduating daughter or granddaughter and tell her its story. Of course, a check or gift card tucked inside might be appreciated more in the short run.

But in the long run? The card will be long forgotten over time while that useful little chest may still be with them when they are grandmothers.

For more about these treasures, visit: lanecedarbox.com.

Donna Cronk lives at Pendleton, Indiana with her husband of 44 years. She's author of three books, including a memoir: There's a Clydesdale in the Attic: Reflections on Keeping and Letting Go.

She is also author of two inspirational novels: Sweetland of Liberty Bed & Breakfast and its sequel, That Sweet Place: At Home in the Heartland. All three books are available on Amazon.

A retired newspaper reporter and section editor, Donna spent 37 years working for Indiana newspapers. She now pens a column for several newspapers and enjoys providing programs about heirlooms and creative ways to keep and give them away. If interested, contact her at newsgirl.1958@gmail.com, see her author page at Author Donna Cronk or visit her website, donnacronk.com.