Buttons

“My heart is small, like a love of buttons or black pepper.” 

― S. Jane Sloat, In the Voice of a Minor Saint

When I opened the drawer the dull hue of the brass buttons faded into the drawer as other more modern trinkets slithered around. To me, however, these buttons had an unmistakeable aura. There was one large buttons and one small one that rolled back and forth on the wooden floor of the rectangular drawer, much like the Tilt o’ Whirl ride at the Blue Hill Fair that pushed the extent of my risk taking abilities. I picked up one in my hands and from the light heft, the State of Maine crest, and the faded gold patina I knew these were special.

These were buttons that made the trip from Maine to Boston, from Boston to New York, and from New York onwards to fields in New Jersey, meadows in Maryland, and small towns like Gettysburg and Antietam. These buttons felt battle, death, sickness, fear, and the promise of journey. The four buttons were no longer languishing as an unknown identity, discarded in the weekly trash, or mistaken provenance. They were rediscovered and they were safe.

The remains of my grandmother’s belongings were divided between my mother and my uncle. The small things forgotten in the 1890 farmhouse were left to me and my brother. My grandmother’s mother was an Estabrook, in which a large jar of buttons she had in her dining room originated from the tiny and larger than life northern Maine towns of Danforth, Seldon, and Wytopitlock. These two buttons are likely to have made their way from several Estabrook and Williams men that served in the 20th Maine and the far away places that the Civil War took them. My distant cousins Glaizer or George Estabrook or their cousins Jewett and Albert Williams. It is unlikely that the buttons were intended to be relished and passed along to another heir, but to be at the ready when a winter coat needed mending or a pair of pants needed to have an anchor.

The two simple buttons have a definitive history and most of it will remain cloaked in darkness. The thought of these items surviving the most pivotal battle at Little Round Top during battle at Gettysburg and being alongside General Joshua Chamberlain is both luck and perhaps some divine intervention. When I hold these buttons, they feel alive and command an aura that is solemn, powerful, and decidedly graceful.

What have you found that is small and forgotten?