Selective Memories

Margaret Hoggatt was overwhelmed after her mother died in 2006. It wasn't just the grief of losing a beloved parent. Her mother, Rosemary, had lived in a small house on Tropic Boulevard in Largo for nearly 30 years. The 1,300-square-foot home was crammed with the things she collected and adored - elephant knickknacks, angels, ceramic roses, kitchen gadgets, cookbooks.

There was the Johnson Brothers dishware and serving pieces, enough for 12 place settings, she scored on eBay. Hoggatt's mother hung on to things like Christmas wrap, a half-filled cardboard folder for old Lincoln pennies, stacks of family photographs, ancient board games, enough thread to start a sewing business.

"My mother never said enough is enough," says Hoggatt, who lives in Largo and, earlier this summer, sat amid a jumble of boxes and trash bags in her mother's living room.

Finally packing up the house represented a big step. Her mother died in 2006 at age 64 of lung cancer. Hoggatt, 43, left the house mostly like it was until this year. Even the bottle of Jergen's lotion and Tova perfume stayed on her mother's dresser.

Nearly two years after her mother's death, she hired professional organizer Betty Arnold of Tampa for emotional support and advice. They first tackled Hoggatt's house, which is smaller than her mother's, to make room for some of her mom's things. Then they started going through all that stuff at her mother's this summer.

This scene of a grown child reluctantly sifting through a mountain of things that once belonged to a parent - and not knowing what to do with it all - is one that will be repeated millions of time in the years ahead.

Julie Hall, a professional appraiser and organizer in North Carolina, notes that 4,800 baby boomers are becoming "middle-aged orphans" every day. She is the author of a new book, "The Boomer Burden: Dealing With Your Parents' Lifetime Accumulation of Stuff," (Thomas Nelson, $14.99) about how to organize clean-ups and avoid family feuds after a parent's death.

The middle-aged orphans could use the help. In a society that values stuff, boomers are likely to have more than they need in their own homes and can't take on their parents' possessions. Meanwhile, their parents, who may have lived through the Depression, saved everything, including empty Cool Whip containers.

It's a trap for stress and family squabbles, especially when siblings live far away from each other or the task of clearing out the parents' home falls to only one of them.

"Nine times out of 10, I see a female boomer doing everything about the parents' house. They're in tears - other siblings aren't chipping in, or they have emotional attachments to things and aren't capable of making decisions," says Hall from her office in Charlotte.

Hall is hired to go through homes and organize, appraise and divide. Siblings pay her large fees to sit in a living room and draw slips of paper from a hat. The slips determine who gets what. To keep everyone calm, Hall will bring snacks, soft music and turn down the lights.

Typically, many things won't be worth keeping. Hall says she has seen enough empty plastic containers, bread twist ties, rubber bands, bobby pins, pencil nubs, plastic bags and, yes, Cool Whip containers to circle the globe twice.

She also has spotted items worth a fortune that were about to be trashed or already were in a Dumpster stationed on the lawn. One group of siblings hated the painting over the fireplace - it was ugly, they said - but Hall believed it was valuable. She was right: The painting was worth $100,000. She once uncovered a dirty old vase filled with pussy willows in a basement laundry basket. The vase sold at auction for $57,000.

Hoggatt didn't find anything in her mother's Largo home worth that much, but trinkets also can be too precious to relinquish without a thump to the heart.

Her mother had so many elephant knickknacks that Hoggatt calls the room where they were displayed "the elephant room." She will keep fewer than a dozen, including her mother's favorite, the little pachyderm made of nuts and bolts.

"When I go through them, it's going to be hard. I'll know who gave her most of them. Usually, I was there when they were unwrapped," Hoggatt says.

Hiring Arnold at $50 an hour helped. Otherwise, Hoggatt would have faced the task of going through her mother's things alone. Her only brother died shortly after her mother passed away.

Arnold encouraged her to take her time and decide what she really wanted to keep. There were three hand-knit afghans in the spare bedroom closet. "They must have been made by someone in the family, but do I really need three afghans?" Hoggatt asks.

This type of paring is recommended by Arnold. Don't feel you have to be the caretaker of things for life, even if someone specifically gave them to you. There are alternatives to honoring family memories. Create a shadow box for the teaspoon and bit of lace that reminds you of your mother. Keep two place settings of china and sell the rest.

Hoggatt was a quick learner once she got over the dread of making those kinds of decisions. There is a piece of furniture in her mother's living room - a mahogany secretary with a glass display case - that seems too nice to let go.

"There's no room for it in my house," Hoggatt says.

It's going.

GETTING ORGANIZED

When your elderly parents must move or have died, you may be the one to clear their house of years of clutter. It's a good idea to hire a professional appraiser first. That way you won't throw away something that looks like junk but actually might be worth something, says Julie Hall, author of "The Boomer Burden: Dealing With Your Parents' Lifetime Accumulation of Stuff." Here is Hall's list of what is best to toss:

Anything plastic: Recycle grocery bags or margarine containers.

Clothes: Give them to charity.

Kitchen equipment: Don't clutter your own home with extra pots, utensils and the like.

Opened items: Get rid of all opened food, paint, cleaning products, medicine and cosmetics.

Old newspapers and magazines: Recycle because most aren't collectible.

Books: Donate them, especially paperbacks. Even antique books may not be valuable, but have an appraiser look at them to be sure.

HIDDEN TREASURES

Some seniors put money and valuables in unlikely places. Julie Hall says these are favorite hiding places that shouldn't be overlooked:

Clothing and shoes - especially the breast pockets of men's suit coats, under sole inserts, in wrapped socks or underwear and bra cups

Drapery hems - a favorite hiding place for small jewelry or coins

Canister sets - rare coins or jewelry in the flour or sugar canister and sometimes cookie tins

Books - paper money between the pages of a book

Ice cube trays - a favorite place for small jewelry or gemstones

Toilet tank - another place for jewelry

Duct tape - money or jewelry wrapped tightly in a wadded ball

Picture frames - between the picture and the mat or backing material

Attic rafters - favorite place for coins, jewelry and antiques