A loveseat

My grandmother was born in 1898 in Plant City, Florida and was of a time and place that was well-ordered.  Southern, Presbyterian, Victorian.  She was a wonderful fixture in life though we did not live near her and saw her only occasionally.  Less than five feet in height she had supreme command presence.  A steel magnolia, long before that movie.  

Like herself, her home was well-ordered.  Everything had a place and everything was in its place.  And everything had a story.  Oh, the stories.

The small living room was adorned with furniture, artwork and heirlooms.  The chairs and sofas were arranged around the perimeter, all facing inwards towards one another.  It was a room for visiting and talking.  And story-telling.  

Over at the far end was a dark wood framed piece of furniture that as a young child I had not seen elsewhere.  A loveseat, designed to seat two people.  This one was, I believe, upholstered in some dark colored plush velvet.  A dark green or blue perhaps.  It looked different and felt different to a child.  And therefore was intriguing.  A little like this.

Click to enlarge.

For a child, the intriguing thing was that it was clearly a handsome piece of furniture.  Beautiful even.  Yet it was, unlike most her other furniture, not especially comfortable.  Easily comfortable for one, two people sitting in it were almost forced into close proximity, facing one another as much as facing anyone else in the room.  Knees almost touching.  

One summer, visiting, I asked my grandmother about it and she explained that a small sofa or large chair that sat two people was called a loveseat.  She then told me the story of that particular loveseat.

It had been part of her parents home, in their living room.  When my grandmother was a young woman, young men would come courting in the proper and orderly way of those times.  I.e. closely supervised.  She and her beaux were permitted to sit in the loveseat in the evening, in close proximity to one another,  talking and visiting as her parents joined in the conversation or circulated about the house.  

The key thing related to the loveseat had nothing to do with the furniture itself.  It was the edict that went with it.  The Plant City, Arcadia, and Gulf Railroad built a line connecting Plant City, Florida to the rest of the world in the 1898, the year my grandmother was born.  

On a warm summer evening, as the young couple sat, closely observed, on the loveseat, conversing in the living room, the evening train would begin its final run of the day.  It brought the train within earshot of my great-grandparents home just near ten o'clock in the evening.  The sound of the distant train whistle was the universally understood, but not ever discussed, signal to the young man that it was time to make his polite departure.  

I am not certain what happened to that old loveseat.  I think, and certainly hope, that my cousin B. has it.  What a herald of a distant time and era, a whisperer of old stories of young love, and warm southern evenings, and strong conventions.   

All this brought to mind by the painting, A Serious Conversation by Gerald Leake (English and American, 1885 – 1975).

Click to enlarge.