My First Blanket Chest or Hope Chest

        After my great aunt passed away in 1982, my mother gave to me her hope chest.  The chest was very plain and in poor condition.  It was not built particularly well and was never meant to be a family heirloom.  My aunt kept it tucked away in her bedroom closet and no one had paid much attention to it.  I was thrilled to have it for several reasons.  It had belonged to a beloved relative, I had never owned a piece of furniture (being a teenager in high school), and the idea of having a hope chest that would hold treasured belongings for the future intrigued me.  I began to fill the hope chest with old and new items “hoping” to one day use them in a home of my own with a family of my own.  Everything I put into the chest had some special meaning to me, whether I had made it, saved to purchase it or inherited it.
     Years later I met and married a wonderful man, Tom, and the hope chest was moved into our little home on his family’s farm.  As I gingerly unpacked my treasures, my husband laughed at the shabby little hope chest, until he realized how much the chest and its contents meant to me.  My great grandmother’s dishes, the blanket I had spent a summer crocheting, the flatware I had ordered off the back of a pancake mix box, my grandmother’s wool carriage blanket, the pillow my great aunt had embroidered; all these things had been waiting inside the hope chest for this day.
     Thus began a fascination with wood chests for me and my husband.  We started to collect family stories of hope chests and traveling trunks.  Tom’s mother has a trunk that had carried all her ancestor’s possessions from Scotland to America in the early 1800s.  My mother has a blanket chest made for my grandmother by an admirer when she was just 16.  My grandmother’s initials are carved into the lid.  The stories are numerous and the blanket chests have great sentimental value, but none are highly attractive or very skillfully made.  As this fact filled my husband’s mind, Tom decided that future blanket chests in our family needed to be beautiful, very well made heirloom pieces that can be prominently displayed in any room.  
     Tom started designing and building wood chests of all shapes and sizes.  He would make toy chests, blanket chests, flag boxes and knickknack boxes for friends and family. Tom worked for a cabinet maker and became quite a skilled craftsman.  Then Tom and I started designing our idea of attractive and timeless, high quality blanket chests and “The American Blanket Chest Company” was born.
     The first two blanket chest styles, the Arden and the Berkeley, are named for the town and county in West Virginia where Tom and I first lived in the little house on the family farm.  We plan to name each new style after a town, city or county in West Virginia and in alphabetical order (we may have a problem when we get to x, y and z).  Each blanket chest style will only be made in limited editions and will be signed by the West Virginia craftsman who makes it.  The blanket chest will then be inspected and numbered and a certificate of authenticity and registration will be issued.
     We are quite proud of these blanket chests, and we think you will love them as much as we do.  Both the Arden and the Berkeley are elegant yet simple and can fit in well with any style from country rustic to classic Georgian.  Start a family tradition with your very own American Blanket Chest today.

   Enjoy!

  Jan L. Loy

 
 P.S.  We currently have 8 blanket chests in use throughout our home. In them, we store blankets, photo albums, books, linens and keepsakes including the little hope chest that belonged to my great Aunt Eleanor.