In Closing Inventory, poet BJ Omanson tells of farmers coming to a house to make a final accounting of the life of their newly deceased neighbor. The visitors are there to take away a few pieces of paper that will let them:
…put
his affairs in order, collect his receipts
and documents, and close his accounts,
In short, they are to pass files and ledgers on to others.
This poem reminds me, the archivist, of what is involved in going into a deceased person’s home to collect papers for preservation in the archives. Around one is often the house or apartment, and all those belongings that made it what it was, being dismantled. Even if my archives had a form to list materials before I arrived, to be passed by a committee and thus voted on for preservation by our repository, for small collections, I would often abandon this formality. I would go carrying a clipboard in a satchel. The clipboard itself, I learned, had to be somewhat hidden. I had learned people felt apologetic if there was not enough to write down, or if there was too much, thought I could do all in one hour or less.
The visit seemed often a professional duty to me. Materials that their mother, father, or aunt had touched would go somewhere, would not be abandoned, and would at least be given the chance of immortality. The belongings had a place to rest, to belong again.
I have heard said in either hushed tones or loud exasperation that my going wasted time and could be also counter-productive to archives, that the donors might have nothing but were simply saying to me, come so you can destroy what I cannot. Still, I always found something that I thought years later some social historian could use. The papers inscribed something more telling than names on graves, told of a collectivity of how days were spent. The relatives were often talkative, and sometimes I would ask if I could record them, a mini recorder hidden also in my carrying case, and thus provide context, say for the stack of letters tied in a ribbon, written by a nephew from ages five to nineteen. The top envelope would reveal something like his obituary announcing his death in Vietnam.
You can see the poem that evoked these thoughts for me, “Closing Inventory” written out at this site or hear it read aloud by the author at this site on tube.
The book in which the poem appears is Stark County Poems, new enlarged edition (Monongahela Books, 2020).
Keeping (and Telling) the Past 