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?

Awful isn't it, so disrespectful. I knew my siblings we're devoid of morals but to do this to parents who loved them etc beyond the pale.

I am an only child by my parents' marriage (I have 2 half brothers who are my fathers from a previous marriage-long story)

My father was 49 when I was born, so I was 19 when he passed. My late mom was 36 when I was born. As you can gather, it wasn't a happy marriage, nor was he a decent dad. My brothers are a lot older than me. I digress so back on topic.

I didn't keep much from mom passing in 2010. However, the standout is the black Good Housekeeping 1001 pages in black my father bought, my mom has a wedding present (🙄) in 1955.

The book is battered and covered in food stains and marks. I love that book. It conjures up happier memories of childhood spent with mom cooking and baking and with my own too. She gave it to me when I was 24 so long before her passing. I still have it.

I also have a beautiful cheese dish made in a deep yellow porcelain, decorated like a farm with a black and white cow on top for the handle

I was delighted to win custody of a battered old wooden Carlsberg crate. I grabbed it out of my dad's workshop as soon as I spotted it, much to my elder brother's annoyance.

We were very friendly about it all though. For the most part we all wanted different things. I think my eldest brother and me wanted the most similar things but it all worked out.

I have a small side table from one Nan and my granddad's RAF papers from WW2.

My cousins and I all wanted the same thing. A little stool. All for the same reason we discovered. It was what we sat on at her knee when our Nan read stories to us! We all thought that was just us!! So she must have made sure we all felt special.

My older cousin whose parents house it ended up in has it but I have said it mustn't ever be thrown out and if they ever want rid I will still want it.

4 siblings and DM's dsis, we all put post-it notes on things we liked, all very civilised and discussions were had when two people wanted the same thing.
What did seriously irritate me was dneices going through DM's jewellery box and helping themselves before we had a chance, they took items that I'd bought for DM.
We eventually got a skip, had to be brutal as you can't keep everything.
Ndn went through the skip and took a few items, he asked first

What a lovely thread, I particularly like the stories where family share particularly special item, having it on rotation 😊

Great idea

When my DM died I received all her jewellery - nothing overly valuable in terms of £ but priceless in terms of sentimental value. I also have her collection of small China jugs.

I have my Nans teaset and from my Dads two older sisters various drinking glasses which I use at Christmas and special occasions.

My Dad who is still alive and amazing gave me his bartenders corkscrew/bottle opener that he used back in the 50s - every time I use it I smile thinking of how he used it before me.

When my DF dies which hopefully won't be for ages and ages I think I would ask my DB if I could have the little garden trowel that he uses in his garden.

There was nothing to take really. Mum didn't own property etc

My sister didn't care she just wanted me to pay for a burial as opposed to a cremation without being willing to stump a penny for any of it.

I have my granny's mason cash mixing bowl. We used to cook together when I was a child, it was the only thing I wanted. She gave me her lovely opal ring when I was 18 because she wanted me to wear it and her see me wearing it.

My mum died last year, I have a few things of hers nut the one I treasure is cinderella and her prince, a wind up toy bought back for my mum during the war. I couldn't find the key, and the paints a bit dodgy now, but it reminds me of my childhood

What a lovely story, and that she treasures it.

Not parents, but my aunty. My cousins asked what I would like and I said her rolling pin ( she had bought it as a new bride back in the late 1940s). They said sorry, no, they had already had words about which of them would get it!

I had to choose something else.

I'd want;

The weird green vase with a face that she kept her knitting needles in (and the knitting needles, to be fair).
The knitting machine.
The psychedelic cow plates that were only ever used on Christmas Day.
The assorted glasses that were never used and lived in a bureau.
A couple of children's nature books.
The photo album - the only evidence of me existing as a child, the 10 or so of the cats and dog and the single photo of my brother.
My grandmother's music box.
My wooden concertina sewing box.
My childhood mug. White with tiny images of swallows sitting on telephone lines.

There is some jewellery including a silver charm bracelet my granddad bought her for her 18th with charms he had put on when she got married and had her first child and a collection of silver joeys she always wanted to make a bracelet from once they stopped being legal tender, but I'd always thought that they should go to my sister - it should now go to her eldest daughter, IMO, and I don't particularly care about the rest of it, either, although the jewellery box itself would be handy.

I've been cut off, so it'll all go in a skip.

From my grandparents, I got the perfect wooden spoon. It makes anything cooked with it just right.

When my grandmother passed I requested a small brass bell which she used to ring each Christmas Eve to signal Santa had been and we could come into the lounge room to open our presents.

It gives me great pleasure to ring the bell every Christmas morning and to see my kids excited faces. Even now they are teenagers they insist I ring the bell before coming to the Christmas tree. I hope one of them eventually takes custody of the bell and continues the tradition with their children.

Ah we had something similar with my MIL (sadly missed by all). She was one of the good ones… but she still took her bread pudding recipe with her! 😂

I never really knew my mother’s mum so my eldest sister has the little keepsakes from her, like her bright red lipstick and little fox fur brooch.
I do have the very old side table that belonged to her grandmother!

However I do have my stepgrandad’s tobacco pouch and pipe, his glasses, and his flat cap. Also the long metal toasting fork that we would use to make toast over the coal fire. He was my very favourite, big gruff coal miner from the north east who would make pies with homemade pastry that could break your teeth.
As an adult I was close to my other grandma, used to take her out shopping twice a week, and then she moved in with my parents so I saw her daily. I have her wedding rings which I use as my own.

My great-aunt, I have a tiny little wooden toy of a cat where you push the bottom of the base and the cat moves but this is so intricate that if you’re careful with where you push on the base, you can make it look like its tail is wagging, or head is bobbing or even twitching one leg. Visiting children are allowed to be shown it, but never ever touch it!

One thing I wanted from a GM’s house was a glass dish (not even at all beautiful) that had always contained orange jelly with mandarin oranges in, when we went for the sort of tea we never had at home, with Wagon Wheels, and Dairylea Triangles! My DM would never buy either, largely because of being skint.
I got the dish - but it wasn’t too long before dh managed to break it. 😰. I was so upset!

When I cleared my parents house I wanted my mum’s old Singer sewing machine, in the past both my sisters and I had borrowed and returned it. I was gutted that although I found all the tools for it I didn’t find the machine. One of my sisters and I were interested in an old glass light shade that had been in the dining room as long as we remembered so we were both surprised to see it had been replaced obviously more than eight years ago as my mum had died eight years before my dad.

What I wanted to take from my gran's house was the smell from the larder cupboard. My sister, my cousin and I stood at the door taking it on for one last time before we left the house. Wish we could have bottled it.

What I did take were teacups and I serve champagne sorbet in them at family meals.

My aunt had no children and always promised her jewellery to me. When she died my uncle lost her rings - he carried them around I her purse and used to show people them so we assumed he'd lost them

When he passed we found them in a set of suitcases bound for the charity shop which we checked at the last second

I wear her engagement ring and adore it - I kiss it every morning

I also have a paper weight from their house - and a sewing box. I swear I can smell them inside it x

My children have already said that they will fight for a board game that my parents own. It’s an extremely politically dubious Monopoly type game - Rich Uncle. I’ve told them we can stage a Hunger Games style event for it.

My parents have two c.18th grandfather clocks. One for me, and one for dbro. I don’t want one… you have to look after them!

A year or two before my mum died she asked us all to let her know which pieces of furniture we would like to have. Then when she was diagnosed with cancer she made a list of which of her belongings were to go to whom. There were still some little bits which weren't listed but we worked that out between ourselves. The sad thing was that she had cancer which had spread to her brain and there was a particular piece of jewellery she had listed to go to my daughter, which she forgot she had meant to go to her and she gave to my aunt.

I was diagnosed with cancer last year and one of the first things I did was to make a list of my personal bits and bobs and who I wanted to have what when I was gone. I'm OK at the moment, but I still keep my list updated. My cancer is life limiting, but not immediately so. However my own mum's organisation made things so much easier for us I wanted to do that for my DH and children.

I grew up in the US and my dad was in the US military and its tradition to drape the casket with a flag at the funeral. It’s also tradition that this flag is folded before burial and presented to the wife (my parents were divorced) or eldest daughter.

My half brother, who was largely NC with my dad, disputed this and said he wanted the flag instead. 🙄 Because my brother contested it, technically the flag is part of the estate so they couldn’t present me with the flag during the funeral. The funeral director said he’d take it back to his office and it would be turned over to the solicitor and my brother and I would have to bid on it to purchase it from the estate if we couldn’t agree who got the flag. I actually didn’t really give a shit about the flag, but it was the principle that he was being such an asshat about it!

10pm the night of the funeral, once everyone had gone home and mum and I were getting ready for bed. There was a knock on the door. It was the funeral director with the flag. He handed it to me and said ‘your brother can’t fight you for this if no one knows what happened to it’ and then he smiled, gave me a wave, and got back in his car and drove away. My asshat brother never mentioned it again, I’ve been NC with him for 25 years now, and I still have my dad’s flag. It sits on the shelf in my home office.

It wasn’t about the flag really. But it meant a lot to me that someone saw how hard it was to lose my dad so young (I was 18), and my brother who was older was already lawyered up and squaring up for a fight for every penny he could get. I felt very small and very alone making all these big decisions as NOK and it was such a kind gesture from someone who clearly was used to the dynamics of families when someone dies, and saw I needed someone to be in my corner for a second when everything was otherwise so hard.

@mindutopia that's both so lovely and so sad.. I'm pleased that funeral director saw it for what it was.