Today I got my great grandmother's old oak rocker back from the restoration and upholstery people. It needed a slat replaced. And since they had it, I asked them to make a cushion so that it was actually comfortable.

Now it sits in my living room with my two “modern” sofas, inherited from my mom and younger sister, and an antique china cabinet and an old oak sideboard.

You would say that the furnishings in my home are eclectic. But what they really are is given. Inherited sounds better though. We bought the coffee table and couch and TV stand in the red room. We bought the folding table this computer sits on. We bought our end tables. We bought several bookshelves. But I don't think we have purchased another piece of furniture in our home.

It's very nice to have well-to-do relatives. It'd be even nicer if we were the well-to-do relatives. I don't mean to complain, though. We have some really nice furniture. A few of the pieces I would even have bought for myself if I could have afforded them or ones similar to them.

Anyway, the chair was given to me when my grandmother died. The chair belonged to her mother-in-law, Grama Lee. I saw Grama Lee once when I was a little girl, maybe five. She was sick in bed. That and the chair are actually all I remember about her. I do know that her mother was a full-blood Cherokee who came West from Georgia, presumably on the Trail of Tears.

I like to have things that belonged to family, where I know about the piece's history.

My Oma White came to visit and saw the oak sideboard my mom and dad gave me for Christmas. She smiled and said it looked just like the one her grandmother had in her home when Oma was a little girl. Oma said her grama had had the piece all her married life. My Oma turned 90 this last month, so that says the sideboard style is old.

I think I might like to get into antique collecting if we had the money, but my husband says we have more furniture now than we need. Of course, for a little while anyway, I'd be willing to trade out pieces.