May 10, 2020When Carol Sommers died in January, her daughters — Pam Sommers, the longtime Rizzoli New York executive director of publicity; and Florie Huppert, a noted New York event planner — had only a few weeks to empty out the Gramercy Park apartment she had lived in for 50 years. Having recently sold her own loft, Pam was in the process of downsizing, so she was very disciplined about what mementos she took from the antiques-filled apartment she and her sister had grown up in.
After Pam got these heirlooms home, she was flooded with memories and, having posted an Instagram tribute to her mother the day she died, found it natural to share more as she unpacked, polished, washed and admired each object. One post led to another, forming an unfolding biography of an unconventional woman and a lifelong collector who shared with both her daughters a love of flea markets, yard sales, antiques shops and world travel.
For Pam, the narrative served two purposes: It turned the aftermath of this devastating loss into a celebration, helping her appreciate anew her mother’s courageous, adventurous side, and it allowed her to share vignettes of the interesting things her mother spent a lifetime collecting.
At this contemplative time, when we are sheltering in our own homes — perhaps appreciating anew the things that surround and define us, that provide us with memories and pleasure — it seems fitting to explore one woman’s unusual and eclectic collections. Few of the items are exceptionally valuable in the traditional sense, but considered together, they paint a vivid portrait of a woman who sought and saw beauty everywhere.
Below is Introspective‘s sampling of Pam Sommers’ Instagram posts.
January 21
Pam and Her Mother in 1963
My beautiful, raven-haired mother was 17 when she got married, just 20 when I was born. With no real life skills to fall back on, and only a high school education (see “married at 17”), she struck out on her own as a single parent with me in tow when she was only 23. She’s about 26 in this photo. (That black fur parka was lined in violet silk, and I thought it was so glam with the tapered black ski pants and black patent leather loafers she wore it with. I was equally enamored of my houndstooth coat and matching close-fitting petal-shaped hat lined in brown silk and my Brownie camera.) In a lot of ways, we grew up together. She made a life as a travel agent. This provided the opportunity to travel to places like Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Greenland, Mexico and Scandinavia, which she loved and which instilled in me a love of travel as well. When I was in my senior year in high school, she turned up unexpectedly pregnant, which she viewed as a miracle because A) she had always wanted another child so much she considered adopting when I was in middle school and B) she had been told she couldn’t ever get pregnant again — thanks, Doc! So, my treasured sister Florie was born when our mom was 38. When Mom retired from the travel business, she found a second career that she not only excelled at but adored, teaching English as a second language, and welcomed into her life an entire cadre of new, international acquaintances, many of whom remained devoted friends. She taught us to love flea markets early, was an amazing cook who set a gorgeous table and made a rich, adventurous, unconventional life for herself and for Florie and me. Her name is Carol Sommers, and she left us on January 21 at 82. We had a sometimes-challenging relationship, but at the end, all that was left was love, tenderness and forgiveness. The hole she left feels vast.
January 30
Fornasetti Portraits of My Mother
Before I knew who Fornasetti was, I loved these plates because his iconic woman’s face looks uncannily like my mother when she was young, which is why she bought them. In a very uncharacteristic house purge, and also not knowing what they were, Mom gave them to my sister’s nanny, Françoise, who parked potted plants on them. Dismayed once she found out they had actual value, Mom managed to claw them back with some effort. It makes me very happy to have them in my bookcase right now.
January 31
The Unseemly Silver
Flatware Triumph
My mother and I were antiquing in the Hamptons, and we both spotted this unusual set of silver rubber-banded together in a pitcher at the same moment. The flea market ninja who trained me got to them two nanoseconds before me and expressed entirely inappropriate glee at snatching them from under my nose. She even bargained the price down. I will think of her every time I set the table with them. They remain among my favorites, and I forgive her for enjoying her unseemly victory so, so much.
February 4
Hand-Carved Domestic Treasure
I have long loved this little piece of domestically useful folk art, which my mother scored on some flea market foray. (It’s only about the size of a salad plate.) I regularly oil all of my woodware, and this was bone-white until I gave it a good first coat when I got it home, reviving the grain a bit and bringing out the details. (She may even have occasionally thrown it in the dishwasher.) Mom also rarely store-bought tablecloths or napkins, instead buying yards of fabrics that caught her eye, like this gorgeous paisley, and hand-fringing them in lieu of hemming. Though she owned a Singer in its own sewing table, she possessed no sewing skills whatsoever. One of her favorite stories was about intently mending something only to find she had sewn it to the leg of her pants. I, on the other hand, love to sew and fix things and invisibly mended a mountain of her favorite sweaters last year. She thought it was magic.
February 5
“Lucky” Plant That
Survived Mom’s Cooking
Now in my office, this funny little plant lived on my mother’s sunny kitchen windowsill and somehow survived proximity to her stove, where she sautéed and fried with wild abandon, leaving everything in the kitchen filmed with a mist of grease. Not much of a housekeeper, Mom mostly left this “protective” layer undisturbed on the plates and glassware that densely populated her open kitchen shelves. One innocent visitor who was in the early stages of learning about fine things eyed the “frosted” glass pitchers and goblets on her high shelves and innocently inquired, “Lalique?”
February 7
Whittled Farm-Tool Jack Straws
These are a set of tiny, hand-whittled farm tools in a turned wood canister incised with a decorative pattern that my sister and I always treated with the careful reverence that their fragility demanded. They were from my mother’s own childhood but, being an unlikely plaything for a girl of her time, surely belonged to her brother, who died before I was born. I am a bit saddened by not actually knowing — or remembering, if I was once told — more about them. I remember thinking they were some kind of pick-up sticks, and upon further research, I found they were indeed a Victorian-era game called Jack Straws. But to us growing up, they just seemed to be an extraordinary collection carved by someone with an eye for detail and a steady hand, who created them to amuse himself or as a gift for a special child who appreciated and cared for them as carefully as we did. The ladder is my favorite.
February 9
Mom’s Paste Brooches, and Mine
I’ve collected 19th-century paste and cut steel forever, often buying buttons and buckles and turning them into pins and wearing them in a constellation on a black sweater or dress. Imagine my surprise at finding a cache of same tucked away among my mother’s things. The image is the newly blended treasure family. I need a bigger sweater.
February 12
Best Feet Forward
While we were packing up, my sister unearthed this burnished set of wooden ladies’ shoe lasts. They are articulated and finely made in what might be a size 4 at best. They must have caught Mom’s eye somewhere with their fine detailing, and proved irresistible.
Next to them are my grandmother’s scallop-edged, button-up baby shoes in brown leather, circa 1900. I like them together — both speak to a very different time, when so many things were crafted by hand and passed down if someone was sentimental (or crazy) enough to save them.
February 16
Handmade Painted Caddy from Uncle Moe’s Workshop
Neither my sister nor I put this worn little caddy in our “want” pile of our mother’s things, but I kept going back to it, picking it up and admiring its contours, hand-painted plums, robust leaves and curly tendrils. I remembered that it sat out in the tool shed at my grandparents’ house and that my dearest great-aunt and -uncle may have had its twin. (I even think that great-uncle made and painted it what has to be nearly 80 years ago.) Now that it’s home and scrubbed, my heart constricts a little at the thought of its nearly getting left behind. And I realize that treasures don’t always come in the form of silver and jewelry but maybe in a simple wooden box hammered together and painted in a busy basement workshop I loved to visit, by someone from a generation before my mom, who I adored.
February 17
Single Transferware Plate from Mom’s Vast Collection
My mother had a passion for transferware and was an avid collector. She had many sets in everyday rotation, dozens of prized pieces displayed in double rows around the foyer and on a salvaged Victorian washstand in the living room, plus turkey-size platters in the front closet. She stacked forgotten boxes of them there after scoring deals on eBay, something I discovered with dismay in an organizing attempt last year. My sister and I inherited this passion and have avariciously eyed her collection for years — a source of much joking among the three of us. When the time came to sort and divide these much-loved treasures, I was a bit shocked to find I only wanted to take home this one oval plate, which I have used nearly every day since. We packed the rest and sent them up to my sister’s country house to look at more calmly and not under the pressure to empty a whole apartment, but I think I will end up with just this one little plate that sparks joy.
February 19
Monogrammed Silver Ashtray: a Wedding Gift for a Teenager?
My mother’s handsome oversize square sterling-silver ashtray was a fixture on our coffee table when I was growing up. It is monogrammed with her maiden name initials. I never thought about it before, but that identifies it as a gift given to her before her marriage at 17, though also possibly as a wedding gift engraved with her personal initials, as was the custom. Like many of her pre–Surgeon General’s warning generation, she was an early smoker when it was a badge of Lauren Bacall–like sophistication, and there were half-smoked Kents all over our apartment, as she lit many more than she finished. (They were 50 cents a pack then.) She quit and didn’t smoke for 20-odd years before resuming to the vocal dismay of all who loved her. She dismissed empirical evidence of any connection between smoking and the many health issues she had — even when she had a spot of lung cancer. She involuntarily and finally stopped this past winter when they slapped a nicotine patch on her at the beginning of what would be five weeks in the hospital. When I observed that this, at least, was a silver lining, she tartly responded, “If you say so.” Though her smoking was a source of conflict between Mom, my sister and me, it makes me happy to have this radiant fixture of not only my childhood but hers. Go figure.
February 23
Glass Polar Bear: A Prized Possession and an Actual Prize
This fat little polar bear was the only thing in our mother’s apartment that my sister and I fought over. And by “fought,” I mean that the moment we realized we both loved and wanted him, each of us insisted that the other take him home. We realize we are incredibly lucky to have felt nothing but mutual love and support as we made our way through the contents of the home our mother lived in for 50 years. No bickering, no squabbles. Just piloting the ship together through emotionally turbulent waters. The bear was a prize Mom won in elementary school for some long-forgotten achievement, and I remember her telling me it was originally painted white. The faceted crystal ball was a gift she received at some much later date. So mesmerizing to look at colorful things through its fractal prisms.
P.S. As should be clear, I let my sister “win,” and the prize bear came home with me. For now.
February 24
Phobia by John Vassos
John Vassos was an influential industrial designer, responsible for the look of RCA products in the 1930s, but also an incredible illustrator. This book shows 24 familiar and obscure phobias in his signature stylized and haunting grisaille illustrations, and I was obsessed with them as a kid. The swollen, veined throat of phagophobia (fear of swallowing) and the arched, impaled body of aichmophobia (fear of sharp & pointed objects) were particularly harrowing to me. I spent so much time poring over this encyclopedia of particular terrors that it’s amazing I didn’t end up paralyzed by some phobia of my own.
This stunning book — signed and numbered by Vassos — was originally my grandmother’s, and I wish I had made off with it years ago from my mother’s bookshelves, as it is in tatters. She was a passionate reader and book lover but without much of an eye toward the special care required by rare ones. I’m working myself up to getting a price for restoration and rebinding. I will likely add sticker-shock phobia to the canon.
February 29
The Mystery of the
Carved Basalt Plaques
My mother’s handsome set of small carved relief portraits — basalt, I think — are a mystery. I’ve been looking at them forever, admiring the rugged, personality-filled profiles and the intriguing carvings and incised hieroglyphs on the backs, but I have absolutely no idea where they are from, when she got them or how old they are. There was a particular piece of jewelry of my husband’s — a sinuous gold snake ring — that tormented me after he died because I had no idea what its origin was, or when — or if — he ever wore it (aside from a watch and wedding band, he was not a jewelry guy), and these faces are like that in relation to my mom. Maybe there is always that one object that comes to represent all the things you wish you had asked, said, talked about, when you had the chance. As with the loss itself, the passing of time dulls the sharp edges of wondering about these enigmatic, symbolic objects, but it never goes away. Look around, and if you don’t know, ask.
