A Thimble in Time

Guest Opinion

By Julia Parton | July 15, 2023

I had a wonderful childhood living on Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City. The neighborhood was full of kids of all ages growing up together as good friends. There was the Grand Traverse Bay to swim in, beautiful beaches to enjoy the sunshine by day and bonfires in the warm summer evenings, and plenty of vast woods and orchards to explore.

I’ll never forget that charming time in my life, nor the house where I grew up. Quite by chance, I had a breathtaking walk back in time.

Five years ago, my husband and I took a trip north in the Traverse City area. I very much wanted to show him the place I had lived as a child on Peninsula Drive. We made the time during our vacation getaway and drove along the winding road I had traveled hundreds of times. There were so many new homes added in all those years, but the shoreline looked just the same to me. I remembered that familiar smell of summer and the beach. There were boats on lifts seemingly in the same places and docks leading out from the sand.

As we approached my old address, my heart skipped a beat. There was my house, still the same pale yellow color with white trim, same wooden garage door with windows in it, same unpaved driveway. It looked just as if time had stood still for 50 years. That little house held a mystery, and I anxiously wondered if it had ever been uncovered!

We sat at the end of the driveway and admired the house, as I pointed out which room was behind each window. As I was eagerly reminiscing with my husband about my first home, a gentleman walked out of the house and asked if he could help us. My husband explained I had lived in this house years ago. Unbelievably, though we were complete strangers, he invited us inside to see the house. We graciously accepted his offer, but I never dreamed what was inside that door.

We walked in the very familiar to me kitchen entrance. It seemed as if I was walking into my house as a child again. In all the years, hardly a thing in that house had changed, other than the paint colors. The cabinets were the same. The table sat in the same place, and it took me back to sitting there on dark winter mornings, wondering if there would be school since it had stormed the night before. I remembered the donuts my mom made so often for our entire neighborhood full of kids. I remembered the Sunday night summer ritual of making popcorn for the Walt Disney Show. It was crazy how memories flooded my mind of things I hadn’t thought about in years!

The rooms were the same; no walls added or taken down. As we walked through the main living area of the house, the only difference I clearly saw was that the knotty pine paneling had been painted. The fireplace mantle my dad built was still intact, and I thought back to the many magical Christmas Eves I had spent by that fireplace with our lighted tree in the far corner. The same place we first had a color television and the same big room where I got in trouble for breaking the lamp.

As we went up the stairs to my old bedroom, my mind raced to the long-kept mystery spot in my former address, hoping to see that long lost treasure.

As kids, we played on those stairs and had discovered a knot hole in the paneling that was just the right size to drop things like marbles, game pieces, and most notably, my great grandmother’s 100-year-old thimble! My mom never let us forget that fateful day the thimble dropped to the bottom, and although several attempts to retrieve it were made over the years, it never saw the light of day again.

It was a tight space with a far drop. Using a flashlight at exactly the right angle, it could be seen laying there waiting to be rescued. Unless it was discovered after my family moved away, it remains in its resting place of over 50 years ago.

To my disappointment on an otherwise completely exciting trip down memory lane, the thimble will be forever lost. Sadly, the knot holes were all filled on the staircase before the paneling had been painted. I told the thimble story to the current owner, and I think he was just as curious as I was wondering if it was still there!

What a fun day being in my childhood home and to have had things remain familiar from so many years past. How wonderful to regain so many memories that were so long forgotten! I still think back to that day, and it reminds me how very blessed I was as a child, growing up in such a perfect little house with so many wonderful memories.

In my mind, that old thimble holds the legacy of that address!

Julia Parton grew up on the Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City. Now living in Florida since her retirement, she enjoys writing about her life as a child in Michigan.