My French-Canadian grandfather, “Pépère,” was a little man, lean and short, always in a button-down shirt over a white t-shirt, always smelling of woodwork and Old Spice cologne. He was a handy do-it-yourselfer who enjoyed saving money every frugal way he could. The man had a straight razor in a glass jar he used to show us kids. He’d brag a little, “I used this razor blade for years, just kept sharpening it against the glass!” His biggest love, though, was his family. He liked sharing wisdom from his life with all of us. Every time I visited, he’d tell stories from his childhood on a farm outside Quebec City (he called it “Keh-Bek”) where he survived polio, a wickedly abusive father, and being kicked in the head by a horse. “Never walk up behind one,” he chuckled, “hindsight is 20-20 in horses.” I didn’t understand but I laughed anyway.
When I was seven, my Pépère told me it was a wise move to buy chairs. According to his own soft-spoken confession, he bought several chairs that he “held onto” so they would gain value. He explained that whenever he had extra money, he’d buy more chairs to hang onto. He told me he had thousands of chairs now. The small curve of his smile when he said it hinted he was proud of this accomplishment. I was confused though, because in their house I only counted four kitchen chairs, six dining chairs, one couch, and two nice but worn upholstered armchairs.
I wondered about the thousands of chairs he said he collected over the past thirty years. What kind were they? I thought of sturdy oak highchairs, shiny mahogany chairs with velvet seats, airy twisted wicker chairs, cedar Adirondacks, and leather recliners. I imagined golden armchairs with lion paw arms and legs, and ornate vintage wrought iron patio sets. Did my Pépère have any thrones in that pile boasting sparkling red rubies or green emerald accents? I pictured every type I could fathom from the simple old-fashioned antique to a growing parade of exceedingly ornate chairs, all stored in some secret place. I saw them so clearly I felt like a pirate. If only I could find the “X” of where he’d put them.
The next time we went to Pépère’s, I searched the basement and attic. I found old boxes of clothes, family photo albums, vinyl records, and one small dusty step stool. The next visit, I searched the back bedroom and the “spare” room over the garage: no chairs and no spares, just neatly made beds and bureaus draped with white doilies. I could smell Mémère’s perfume—lilacs lingering as if she had just walked in.
I wondered, did Mémère know the chairs’ location? I asked that afternoon. She was watching Guiding Light, so I waited for a commercial.
“Mémère, where are all the chairs?”
“What, honey?”
I asked louder, “Where did Pépère put his chairs?”
“The chairs? Oh, he put a bunch down in the basement last week for our fiftieth anniversary party.”
That’s right, their anniversary was coming up! They were throwing a party in the big banquet room of the Holiday Inn to celebrate. All my great aunts, great uncles, regular aunts and uncles, and cousins were coming. I guess Pépère wanted everyone to sit in the nicest possible seats. I asked if I could go look at them. Mémère said, “Sure, but be careful. There’s supplies getting stacked for that party down there, don’t knock them over.”
I walked, but I was running on the inside through the basement door, my feet fast rotors down those narrow wooden stairs, my eyes searching for a herd of glittering seats. There was only a long row of gray folding chairs, maybe one hundred of them. I guess Pépère did not want his family and friends sitting on his treasured chairs, devaluing them with sweaty bums and spilled drinks. After their party, I just stopped looking. Eventually, I even forgot the tale of the chairs. It would be a decade later, after Pépère died, that I found out he really did have thousands of them.
I found them in a conversation with my dad, who’d gone back to Pépère’s house to help clean it out. We spoke on the phone from two different coasts, sad voices meeting somewhere in the middle. Dad sounded tired. I asked him if it was hard to be back in his childhood house getting it ready to sell. He said it was strange but as a realtor, not difficult to get done. My dad talked a lot about my grandfather that night; how he was lucky to be born in New Hampshire when his folks were traveling. How he used his dual-citizenship to come across the border for work, then host his brothers one by one through the 1930s-40s. How he helped everyone he loved.
Dad said, “Pépère was always smarter than most people thought. He made very little money in his job at the typewriter company, but he always invested wisely in different stocks and bonds.” Apparently, Pépère had a knack for finding great long-term investments which made him rich compared to his humble beginnings.
Dad said, “He had hundreds of shares he’d bought for pennies that continued to grow in value over the decades he held them.” I finally saw that Pépère’s “chairs” were never made of wood or fabric; they were made of American companies and industry; they were made of an immigrant’s savings and calculated risks. Pépère had bought so many good “chairs” that he ended up leaving behind for each of his kids and their kids money for college, trade schools, or investments of their own. When I told Dad how confused I’d been for years about Pépère’s “chairs” he laughed pretty hard.
Even now, I can hardly look at chairs around tables and living rooms without thinking of Pépère and his treasured “chairs”—a riveting pirate tale of investments.