Personal Artifacts

Anyone who's seen me move knows that I really only have one piece of furniture that I don't want dropped or scratched and will demand that you use coasters on - an oak dining room table that came by way of my grandma-Kozakavich. In recent years I've only used it as a desk - having neither a dining room nor a penchant for sit-down dinners. As I was reassembling the table in my new home last weekend (it took me three moves to realize that the legs come off) I noticed markings on the underside that spoke to my archaeological side - the word "Fenwood" handwritten in chalk, and a mechanically engraved nine-digit number. Fenwood refers back to my grandmother's family, the Sawchyns, who lived west of Melville, Saskatchewan near the towns of Goodeve and Fenwood. The nine-digit number is, I believe, my mother's social insurance number, which she engraved on several of our "valuable" possessions some years back when we lived on Cascade Street, in Saskatoon. While it goes against my general ethic to carve my name or address into furniture, I do hope that some opportunity comes along when I can inscribe my own part into the table's family history.