Family Heirlooms
by
They say possession is nine-tenth of the law. They also say “Finder’s Keepers, Losers Weepers.”
Both sayings are accurate in this story.
On one end, you have two sisters more than a 100-years-old seeking to reclaim priceless family heirlooms.
On the other end of the story you have an amateur genealogist who owns the Perry County house where the women were born, who now has possession of the artifacts the older women want back.
Lily Thomas Boyd is 103. Her little sister, Juanita Thomas, is 101.
The centenarians now live in north Nashville, in a home that is full of photographs and history.
Of 11 children born to George and Florence Thomas, only Lily and Juanita are still alive.
The family was born and raised in Linden, Tennessee.
Over the years, family members moved away. Some became teachers. Others became politicians.
In the meantime, county records indicate that Rachel Szuliman bought the family homestead.
By phone, Szuliman told Messed Up the house was a disaster, abandoned for decades and left open to transients.
Szuliman and her husband restored the house to pristine condition.
In doing so they encountered artifacts belonging to the Thomas family.
She found church records from the 1890’s and slave records from the 1860’s. She found a biographical sketch written by the women’s father, George Thomas, in 1867. Szuliman also found a bible that Lily and Juanita say is more than 125 years old and has great sentimental value to the family.
Szuliman is blunt when she discusses the matter.
Much more on that in a moment, but in a nutshell Szuliman says she has given the sisters several items and made others available to them online or at her home.
Szuliman questions why the women and or their family never came to look for these priceless possessions in all the years the house was there, prior to her taking possession.
Back to the sisters — The tiny women, a combined 204 years of age, easily fit on the small sofa. They begin to reminisce and explain what the items and family mean to them.
Though younger by two years, Juanita is not as verbal and allows Lily to do most of the talking.
The former minister’s wife has a remarkably vivid memory.
When I ask her how old she is she smiles, saying, “I am very young. I will be 104 years old in three weeks.”
I laugh and listen to the super-senior who tells me she was born on March 30, 1906 at 2 a.m. in the morning in Linden, Tennessee.
“There are different things we treasured, that got misplaced somehow when we left Linden,” Lily says.
Before I can ask her another question, Lily launches into another story, this one about her grandfather with the bright blue eyes.
“My father’s father was Dr. Cole,” she said. “He was doctor for the king in England. When he didn’t bow to the king, he had to slip out [of the country] and come to America. That was 1842.”
I try and ask her what the letters and bible mean to her.
“I would treasure them forever and pass them on down,” she said. “They would be passed on down through the Thomas family.”
I ask how old the bible is.
“It’s at least from 1842,” she said. “I’m not sure how old before then.”
Lily tells me that her mother, Florence, was a church worker and in the 1920’s she organized women to vote.
“My mom got them together in Perry County and carried them to the polls to vote,” she said with great assurance.
“My older brother was a lawyer. He was a great politician. He didn’t miss any conventions. He was a Republican. In my family we had many, many ancestors in the Civil War.”
I try and get her back on track about the heirlooms she would like returned.
“I am just shocked at the woman. Anytime we went to Linden we stopped by, she gave us a few things, but not everything.”
“What would you say to her right now?” I ask.
Her eyes brighten and she leans forward on the couch. “If I could talk to her, what would I say? I am shocked and surprised you had these things, belonging to my great ancestors on my dad’s side and to keep that bible, and it is treasured in our family all through the years. To think you kept it all these years I am shocked. She should give it to me. I think she is a good Christian woman, and why she is keeping it I don’t know, and it hurts me and she won’t give it to the family. It doesn’t mean anything to her whatsoever.”
“What does it mean to you?” I ask.
“It means everything to us. It is history and carries us back through life and up to the present. I can’t express how much it would mean. I couldn’t express that in words what it would mean to pass it on down.”
Like every story, there are two sides. There are two sides to this story as well.
I speak with Mrs. Szuliman by phone for a long time. She is candid in her remarks when I tell her what Lily and Juanita have to say.
On March 5, 2010 Szuliman tells me the following:
“It [the items] had been in the house for 30 years. I worked and went through all the trash. The house was abandoned. The floors had collapsed. The front door wouldn’t close. Neighbors report people coming in and going out. There were vagrants that came and went and took things for 30 years. I am not willing to go through the whole process and give them back the things they could have gotten themselves. I bought the house 10 years ago. [County records show the house was purchased in 1993.] What was in the house was exposed to anyone who wanted anything for 30 years prior to that. Now they want it back.”
When I ask her why they want it back now, Szuliman says, “Why? Because they found out it was there. They had been searching for the bible for years and never looked for it.”
“Were they too lazy to look through the trash?”
“The house was in total disrepair. The city wanted to condemn the house. It is a piece of history for the neighborhood. We fought for [the house.] My husband worked on the house. He was out there building homes in the area, two weeks after heart surgery. The windows were knocked out, the floor collapsed. It was so full of trash, you wouldn’t believe it.”
“After we worked on it, we had to jack the rooms up. We had to jack them up. We are old house-people. These are part of the history of Perry County.”
I tell her how important the documents seem to be to the women.
Szuliman replies, “I wanted to save the important documents of the family. I am not willing to give them to any one person. I want them shared with the whole family, which is why I put them on the Internet.”
She continued, “If I give them to one person, guess what, they won’t share them. The people pushing for this won’t share. There are several grand children. The one wanting this won’t tell the others about their heritage.”
Szuliman tells me that Lily is the one pushing this.
“I live in her uncle’s house. We re-did it. We wanted the family to come back and feel at home. I’m now on the outs with them.”
“After I did all this work, and now they have this attitude. I rescued them. The city wanted to burn this house. They burned the house two doors up.”
I ask her if the material is valuable.
“I don’t think so,” she replies. “I think they just wanted to know where it was. If a building sits for 30 years and nobody looks for the family bible in all that time, what does that tell you? It tells you they are too lazy. They want someone else to look through the trash and reap the benefits. It doesn’t work that way. This house was open 30 years. We bought it, and it was so bad we couldn’t tell there was a house. It was so overgrown in front, took four months to get through and dig it out.
“How did you find the artifacts?” I ask.
“By working and by luck,” she says. “I went through everything. I threw away garbage. I saved what was savable. They are giving me a terrible struggle on this and I think, where are they coming from?
“I bought it 10 years ago. It sat for 30 years before that. Why didn’t they go through and look in all that time? I think they want something for nothing. That is my opinion. They are happy they found it, now they think they can claim it. They cannot. They can’t say that is mine. Maybe they will take part of the foundation of the house. I am willing to share with the family. They can come to my house, anyone or everyone, but if they want to take it with them, well that is not the way I work. [The house] was condemned. All these documents would have been burned without me. They don’t appreciate that. They just want their hands on it.”
A conservator for the sisters says that the law is on Szuliman’s side since she legally purchased the house and all the contents inside.
What do you think?
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Do you care if a child gives the pilot of the plane you are flying in the okay to take off? Passengers at Nashville International Airport were split pretty evenly on the question.
“That was inappropriate,” said a woman flying in from Washington D.C. “Would you want an eight-year-old taking care of the control tower your plane is flying into?”
