The Death of a Hope Chest. Even After I Put a Lot of “Hope” Into Mine.
I first learned about a hope chest when I was sixteen years old. I’d already left home, and was living in a crummy little blue trailer not far from my parents’ farm in Winter Haven, Florida. At that point, the most important thing to me was that I could eat as many Little Debbie Swiss Rolls as I damned well pleased. Relieved of parental disapproval (especially my father’s) I could now eat Swiss Rolls all day long (I just mispelled that as “Swill Rolls,” which is a very apt slip of the digits. They are most definitely swill masquerading as food).
Can’t recall how I learned about them. The hope chest is traditionally a large cedar chest which is supposed to hold those things that a young unmarried girl stows away for her future marriage. Linens, china, That Special Dress, whatever the family and the firstborn girl deemed appropriate.
Once married, the chest would be transported to the new home and then used as a part of household furniture. Usually for storage, as many were cedar, and the fragrant wood protected precious pieces from moth damage. I can recall at the time, the giggly girls in my high school were breathlessly discussing theirs.
At the time, barely sixteen, living on my own and putting myself through my last years of high school, the idea was as distant as Borneo.