You can learn a lot about a person or a people from what they leave behind. From a fragment of pottery or a broken tool, archeologists can infer how someone lived or died, their social status, who they traded with, what gods they worshipped, even how their society was organized.
When I was cleaning out my parents’ house after they died, I found a number of my mother’s old name badges. After we had moved to Denver, she went to work for the Denver Dry Goods Company in Cherry Creek. “The Denver” was Denver’s preeminent department store and Cherry Creek its most prestigious mall.
Mom sold costume jewelry – later renamed to “fashion” jewelry to be more fashionable. Selling earrings and bracelets (and occasionally handbags) gave her the opportunity to meet everybody – and she met everybody. Young and old, all the women in town bought their jewelry at “The Denver” in Cherry Creek. Mom would regale us with tales of the earrings she sold to the Governor's wife or the bracelet she sold to Janet Elway – the wife of our most famous citizen.
You couldn’t go anywhere in Denver without somebody recognizing Mom from the store. They began to call her “The Queen of Cherry Creek.” People would stop her just to chat. The girls I went to high school with all knew her - and it didn’t help my dating life that she was more popular than I was!
Some badges had more than just her name. There were those with little gemstones indicating work anniversaries. She collected the entire set. She worked in that store for decades – through its acquisition and rebranding as May D&F and then Macy’s. She had badges for them all.
The badges she wore with more pride were the ones with “Admiral’s Club” or “President’s Club” below her name – an honor given to top sales associates in the store.These were based on how profitable you were - what you sold versus what you cost. They were mostly the domain of the associates selling big ticket items like furniture and fine jewelry. But Mom was a regular on the list (even topping it many times!) and doing it selling inexpensive jewelry.
Mom was successful because she was never in the business of selling jewelry. Well, she was – but she never let you know that. She was in the business of making friends. She could talk to anybody and make them feel comfortable. Give her five minutes and she’d know your life story. And when she told you that something looked good on you, you knew it was true.
These honors meant more to Mom because her legendary sociability was, for her, an act of self-invention. She often told of being shy as a kid, awkward, overweight,“a mouse” in high school. She decided she would not be satisfied with a life like that and forced herself to change. And change she did. The Mom I knew would talk to anybody, anywhere – eating in the food court, standing in the grocery line, riding the bus. She would flirt with every waiter in every restaurant. She would tell the same five jokes – well I knew they were the same jokes. No one else did. They always made someone smile. It was a gift – one she gave herself.
A gift like that needs a stage. When years of standing on the sales floor left her unable to stand there anymore, she lost more than her job – she lost her joy. She stopped collecting badges and people and stories. She never stopped being the “Queen of Cherry Creek” but her reign lost its luster when she could no longer survey her domain.
Yes, you can tell a lot about somebody by what they leave behind.