When your parents died, what surprised you about what your siblings wanted from the estate?

[Weenurse]

My Mum passed away recently.
Long way from sorting out her things, but she does have some lovely family pieces and furniture that I thought my siblings would want.
The thing we are light heartedly fighting about, are her recipe books. One book in particular that has all of her hand written family favourites in it.
Mum stipulated names in a hat and pick on drawn out order for fairness. I am hoping to be drawn out first for those books.
(I have already photographed my favourite pages just in case I miss out)
So what surprised you about your family and what they wanted from the estate?

When my Dad died there was a clock my Mum didn't want that the three of us kids did. We just share it, so it spends time in each of our homes. We don't keep track of how long, but one of us will say oh who has it and that generally results in it being passed on again between us. Now I don't care which of us has it and I have not seen it in many years, which I am happy with (as it isn't something I would choose, but just an item that was present throughout childhood that we were all sentimental about).

I think it was quite a good way for us to have let go by sharing like that.

Not parent but grandparent.

Nothing valuable is in dispute, but all the grandchildren want the 'hunting horn' bunged together by their grandpa from a piece of copper tubing and a brass funnel.

We often visited my MiL on a Sunday for a very traditional roast and afternoon tea. My BiL, his wife and two daughters went also. The 4 GCs always went to the kitchen to prepare tea, load it on to a bright red Hostess Trolley. and wheel it in to the living room.

I took over the funeral tea, and was surprised to be approached by my 20 year old niece asking if ‘anyone would mind if she took the hostess trolley. She has moved 4 times in the 20 years since then and the Trolley, which lives in various lofts, has moved with her each time.

Mine was a weird one. No one wanted anything! It was really strange.

I have my grandmother's recipe book, it needs re binding but one day I'll write my favourite recipes in it and would love to pass it on to a future generation. Unfortunately the one recipe I wanted to be in there isn't 😂

Didn’t get a chance…..brother from Australia cleared out the bungalow…..and said ‘I didn’t need to know’ what he’d done with everything. He alleged I hadn’t replied to a text so just did it.
bastard.

I am sorry @theywenttoseainasievetheydid 💐💐💐

Sorry to be a downer on this lovely thread. I was enjoying reading it until the frustration bubbled up again.
in answer to the OP i’d have like to have the oil painting of Michaelmas daisies. My parents bought in around 1975 and iI remember feeling quite ‘posh’ that we had a real painting in the house and it is in the background of some family photo’s

Recipe books here too from nan, aunt x 2, DM. Loved to see the repair of a similar treasure on "The Repair Shop".

One family member went round with stickers when DAunt died and stickered up virtually everything (nice china, glass, paintings etc) in the house that she wanted - which was odd as they weren't really talking by the time DAunt died 🤔 However after clearing it all into her garage she herself died about 6 months later. We weren't her executors so never found out where DAunts stuff ended up. Probably the tip! ☹️

When my dm died, she left a small house to be sold and the proceeds split equally between us, and her personal effects.

It was the things that weren't wanted that surprised me.

Nobody else wanted her set of four ivory napkin rings so I have those. They are beautiful and while I wouldn't buy them new, I don't see the point in destroying something beautifully crafted. And I have a silver punch ladle with an antelope horn handle which 'gave everyone else the creeps'. I also have her stamp collection because no-one was interested in it, but it contains some Edward VIII stamps and several from Germany in 1940 (I had a German great grand mother) plus lots from ex-Empire countries. It's all part of the family's history so a shame to lose it.

When my grandmother died she left some nice sets of 1920s jewellery (think earrings and brooch sets, necklaces and matching earrings - that sort of thing). My Mum and her sister decided that rather than one have one set and one the other, they would split the sets themselves, so each got a collection of earrings, necklaces and brooches that did not match.

My cousins and I could never fathom the reasons why they did it this way.

@theywenttoseainasievetheydid

Same.
Brother cleared, stole chucked everything and sister took rest.

Nothing really. For years my DM had been saying, ‘Put your names on anything you’re going to want now - I don’t want any arguments after I’m gone!’ (There was animosity among her own siblings after her Dm died, but she’d never got on with them anyway.)

There were one or two pieces of furniture I really liked but just didn’t have room for, so I had no problem with a sibling having them.

A lovely old gate-leg dining table actually crossed the Atlantic to a DSis, but came back again after she downsized - and now sits in dd2’s house.

I think this is so lovely!

@Weenurse So sorry for your loss 💐 Not the question, I know, but I’ve seen a few places on Instagram that take old handwritten recipes and print them on tea towels/make framed prints etc which I thought was a lovely idea. Keep some nice clear pics of your fav pages or scan them and keep them safe and it could be a nice thing to do one day. Or a nice thing to have done for whoever doesn’t have the book.

I think for a lot of people after a loved one is gone, they realise that a lot of the household stuff is just “stuff” and doesn’t really hold much sentimental value. My grandmother had a necklace which she never took off and as soon as she passed (I’m talking within minutes 🙄) people were squabbling over who got to take the necklace. I buried her with it 🤣🤣 She never took it off in life so no reason she shouldn’t have it wherever she is now 😊

Personally I kept things with handwritten messages/recipes etc, her sewing box, and a few old pieces of clothing that reminded me most of her - like a big oversized cardigan that she used to wear and snuggle me up in as a child 😊

Parents still around yet. But clearing DGM's house, I (and at least 1 other DSis) wanted her big cream pottery mixing basin. DM gave that to a friend because we wouldn't appreciate it. 😖

We all got a painting she'd done, but the one DH had asked for and been promised as he did her garden for 15 years and I was eldest DGC so entitled to first pick, was one a few wanted so DM decided to get it copied for everyone else (we did get the original), while everyone else got one just for themselves.

But I was lucky and got her collection of fabric and DM/DAunt also gave me her knitting collection which was a lot of different pairs of various sized needles, many hard to get, and a whole bunch or the large safety pin type pins to store part finished work on.

The DGS's had some quiet wrangling over DGFs tools which were sorted at that point too - they all wanted a few of the old chisels and wooden mallets.

My other DGPs house had things quietly thrown out by DAunt who never moved out, without asking anyone if they wanted things. So we never got a chance to ask.

Same but with my grandad

I was at school when my 'aunt' (my father's sister) came round and bunged every single thing in a skip.it took longer than she thought and I came home (fully expecting grandad to be there,but they hadn't told me they'd moved him into a home)

She gave me '5 minutes' (more like 2) to grab what I wanted and I was to leave

I lost everything I owed that day bar a few books,a teddy,half a packet of san-pro and my toothbrush

Last contact I had with her is a week later when she rang to scream at me for stealing £5 from him in the home (I hadnt)

Her and my father had fallen out just before I was born,and she was desperate to be back on friendly terms with him (he's a stubborn man who refused) and I think she was taking it out on me that he told her where to shove her relationship with him

I don't know how long the recipe book is OP, but you could photograph the pages and get some more books printed up so that all of you can get a copy. More likely to survive a generation that way.
My mother died young and it was quite traumatic, so it was the boring stuff she used everyday for us- Her favourite jumper, hairbrush, spectacles, that sort of thing. But now, many years later, I am thinking more and more about getting rid of this stuff when I'm older in a Swedish death cleaning sort of way- These items won't (and shouldn't) hold the same significance for my own children.

I've got 4 sisters and no brothers. When Mum died after a very nasty illness we all helped nurse her at home. I took her bread board and the mug she liked to drink her tea from. For me I can recall sitting around the table as a child and all the years I loved at home and Mum spreading the bread and cutting off slices for sandwiches. One of my sister's took her cake tin. She said she recalls coming home from school on Fridays and having the little cakes Mum used to make and my sister often brought her 2 best friends home with her to get a cake each too before they walked home. Another sister wanted the recipe book but actually it's was from my Gran because Mum never wrote her recipes down but she taught us all how to make them. One sister wanted her pearl necklace recalling she had broken it as a child and Mum had it restrung. My younger sister took a huge mirror that had hung over the fireplace. Not sure why she wanted that one.

My parents think me and my sister will be fighting over a table. We won't. I don't want it, or have space for it!

This is a lovely thread. It's like the antidote to all the awful inheritance arguments you here about where people lose the plot over money and valuable items.

My darling sister, when clearing out my late uncles flat (she was his executor and handled it beautifully on behalf of his only daughter, our cousin, who was utterly in pieces after his death), made sure to keep all the lovely mementoes without my even asking, I have handwritten recipes by my Nan and Uncle, there are not many but they are so precious to me as I love cooking and so did he. She found a letter I wrote to my Nan when I was 11, and postcards I sent them when I first went away with my now DH. I treasure all of them. My sister was fabulous, and doing the whole process of clearing that flat and getting it sold was an enormous strain. She was brilliant.

My husband wanted Christmas decorations that had always been hung on his grandmother's tree. The rest of his extended family thought this was a bit strange but he smiles hanging them on our tree every year.
I wanted my Gran's big soup pot. Everyone agreed as long as I always make a big pot of soup for family gatherings! I would probably have done this anyway!
My sister got all the kitchen ware from my mum. This made sense as until then she had lived with mum whereas I already had my own home. It makes me smile when I am in her home and use mum's 1970s Tupperware!
My dad's girlfriend emptied his house. We didn't even get our own belongings from it.
I really wanted one of his jumpers but we got nothing, not even photos.

Not parents, but grandparents. I really wanted this (in many eyes) ugly painting capturing our family history that my grandad commissioned. I always enjoyed looking at it when I was at their house.

When I finally had my own house, I had it reframed and I love it.

When my grandmother died, the only item I wanted was her blue biscuit barrel as I have loads of memories of her from it.
I'm currently using it to store my rice in so every time I use it I think of her.

My sister went through mums house the day after she died and took everything she wanted and other items that she didn't but were worth some money. I'm NC with both my sisters.

recently had a letter from older sister asking about a specific item that mum had given to me before she died that was my fathers saying she wants it and I should send it to her. Not a chance