The Adventure of Cleaning Out the 4th Floor Store Rooms

Martha memories

Deb Day Jansen BS ’75, MS ’77

Shannon Meeks, Facilities Manager for the Martha Cook Building, mentioned to me that she wanted to clear out old, broken furniture from the storerooms on the 4th floor. Coincidentally, the House Board recently said that they would like to reopen the Sewing Room on the 4th floor and turn it into a student lounge, but it was overflowing with old furniture. I knew these two conversations were going to set me off on a real adventure, and we were going to find some treasures in those old storerooms.

In January, Shannon and I went through all the storerooms on the 4th floor, and some storage areas in the basement. Shannon developed a complete inventory of the items we felt should be sent off to Property Disposition (U-M’s version of a resale shop).

The fun began on a February morning, as a full sized moving van and 6-7 strong men arrived at the Building at 8 am. There were some spaces Shannon and I hadn’t been able to get to because of all the “stuff ” in front of them—you know, the spaces way under the eaves—but that’s where the treasures were buried. I anxiously waited while the movers hauled out all the broken dressers and desks (spare furniture is used to repair existing dressers and desks in the student rooms). It seemed to take forever, but finally, the space under the eaves uncovered two old trunks. I was sure they held treasures from an exotic life, just waiting to be discovered! Sadly, they were empty. Then, I saw it….a beautiful vintage Singer sewing machine with a cabinet that looked just like those of old treadle sewing machines, but it was a newer version, as it was electrified. We opened the cabinet and a beautiful machine was inside! Yippee! It must have been one of the original sewing machines for the sewing room. We saved it, of course, and hope to display it in a future 4th floor lounge/ sewing room.

Overall, this was a very successful day as we discarded many unusable items and found a treasure!