Would you like to at least look at an old Sears Roebuck catalogue again, even if you can't order from it? Click here and you can buy a reprint of a 1897 Sears catalogue, edited by Fred L. Israel, with an introduction by the truly wonderful S. J. Perelman. I'm writing a fantasy about a woman who finds she can still order anything from any old Sears catalogue: The Wish Book

This facsimile of the 1897 Sears Roebuck catalogue is an incredible book. Anything you would need to live - in 1897 - you could buy here. This is a catalogue for people who knew not only how to shop, but how to do things and make things.

You think you're handy around the house? Forget about it. In 1897, you could buy a couple of different kinds of bone cutters, plus a hand bone mill. Why? Feed your chickens bone meal and you increase egg production, and of course those bones lying around the farm won't go to waste. If your chicks suffered from gapes, caused by worms, you could take care of them by using the manual Gape Worm Extractor - at 20 cents, "One chick saved pays price of instrument." There's a Spoke Pointer, which presumably was for putting points on your wheel spokes. There are a couple of machines you could attach to a churn or cream separator that could be powered by a dog, goat, or sheep walking the treadmill. There's Strangle Food, for killing insects. There's a hog scraper, which at 18 cents "Will pay for itself the first time used." I suppose it was for cleaning hide after butchering, but it reminds me of a story about the time my Grandmother Ina Douglas (see picnic photo above) went out one winter to wash the frozen mud off the pigs, to keep it from pinching their hair and hurting them.

But life wasn't all labor in those days. Here's a mystery in the furniture section: a "great anti-trust sale of dressers," with no explanation given. Maybe this was equivalent to buying products from socially conscious companies. What to put in your dresser drawers? You could buy not only hair pieces and wigs, but false beards and mustaches. You could buy all sorts of interesting patent medicines, such as Peruvian Wine of Coca along with liquor and tobacco cures, Dr. Rose's French Arsenic Complexion Wafers, and Laudanum (Tincture of Opium) as well as a reliable cure for the opium and morphia habit.

And the clothes - three whole pages of handkerchiefs! Cowboy gauntlets and husking gloves! The Citizen's Hat, and Stetsons! Suits for fat men, not large or stout, but fat! And the illustrations of ladies in their summer union suits look like me - and like my grandmothers - not like Kate Moss! Can't picture Kate Moss out on the farm, scraping hogs or extracting worms from chickens with gapes. There are ladies' shoulder braces with hose supports. Apparently you would hold up your stockings from your shoulders.

There are actually 27 pages of illustrations of gorgeous pocket watches and 10 pages of watch chains and fobs, in addition to the explanations of terms and watches' innards, and tools for watchmakers. There's a little eye test to help you determine which kind of spectacles you need to buy. There are lots of sewing machines, guns, musical instruments, fishing gear, buggies, harnesses and saddles, bicycles, books, pipes, cameras ....

What I want to know is, where is all that stuff now? I know some of it's in antique shops, some still in people's houses and barns, and some long gone into the ground one way or another. But it's as if the 1897 earth has been almost wholly replaced.

I would like to have catalogues from each decade after 1897, so if you know of any sources, please e-mail me.

Here's an excerpt from my catalog fantasy.

from THE WISH BOOK

Copyright 2001 by Rhonda Keith

As a small-time dealer in antiques and collectibles Shelly had her eye on a few objects in her aunt's old house, but none were of great value, and were not the motive for her summer visits.

Why did she keep coming, making the half-day drive south at least once a year? Why not flog her business through all the vacation months? Her stall, The Rag and Bone Shop, was not in a tourist town - as if Ohio had any big tourist draws - but summer was still a busy time. The big flea market in the little town of Hartville, south of Akron, drew lots of shoppers. Shelly could have taken her time off in the slower period after New Year's, scraped up money to go to the Caribbean with friends, perhaps. Maybe this year she would. But she was always welcome at Adela's, and nothing was expected of her. Adela did not look at her with her parents' hopeful dog-eyes, waiting for their only child to produce something more: academic degrees, a real shop, more money, marriage and children. They weren't impressed with Shelly as a businesswoman. At least she wasn't in debt, but that was a lackluster achievement. They'd be more impressed if she had a showy store in a fashionable location and owed tons of money.

Adela also did not have any personal crises for Shelly to listen to, like her friends. Adela had no love affairs, marriages, abortions, children, divorces, job interviews, political opinions, not hers, not anyone else's. She didn't even complain about her health. As Jane Austen wrote about old Mrs. Bates, she was past almost everything but tea and quadrille, whatever quadrille was.

So Shelly could while away a couple of weeks in peace and quiet, and try to ignore her own formless, yet nevertheless frustrated, ambitions. She packed up after the July 4th weekend and drove down, marveling as usual how the cloudiness of the northeast quadrant of Ohio could be counted on to disappear as she crossed into the lower half of the state. Everything changed by Columbus.

It was sunny when she pulled her 1964 Valiant - a real collector's gem, though not very valuable, that had once been Aunt Adela's - into the tree-shaded gravel drive, and parked in front of the barn. Lilacs, roses, wisteria, and peonies scented the atmosphere to dizzying point. Aunt Adela was sitting on the porch swing, and slowly raised one hand in greeting. Adela was magic with flowers still. Her live-in housekeeper, Caroline, a comparatively young thing of 70 years or so, set out a tray of iced tea and cookies on the rattan table next to the swing as Shelly was getting out of the car. When Shelly sat down beside her aunt, the old woman squeezed her hands as firmly as ever, though it didn't hurt Shelly's full grown and work-toughened hands anymore.

"I'm just so tickled to see you, dear," she said in her high, clear, but tremulous voice, with the remnants of an accent from the West Virginia hills.

"I'm glad to see you too," Shelly answered, squeezing back gently. "Glad to be here."

"Did you have a hard trip? No rain I hope."

"Oh, no. And the car still runs great. I take good care of it. Should get another hundred and fifty thousand miles out of it." Most of those miles had been put on the car after Shelly got it.

"Well, that's fine. But of course it's not an up-to-date car. A young girl like you ought to have something more stylish."

"This car's an antique. More than 25 years makes a car an antique. And that makes it stylish."

"Well, I reckon I'm an antique too, but it ain't done much for me being stylish!"

They both laughed.

"What do you have here, Auntie?"

"Just pour yourself a glass of tea, dear. And have some cookies. They're store boughten, but they're good. I just can't eat sweets like I used to."

"I mean that." Shelly pointed to a book on the swing, on the other side of her aunt.

"Oh, I've got the new wish-book here. I was just fixing to order a few things I need."

Shelly reached over her aunt's narrow lap and picked up the book. It was a 1947 Sears catalogue, in excellent condition. "Why, Auntie, Sears went out of the mail order business a few years ago. And this is an old catalogue. Really old." She riffled through the pages.

Adela seemed not to hear her, or at least didn't pay attention. "They send me a new catalogue every once in a while, every year or so I reckon. I don't order much anymore, but I'm going to buy a few new towels, and some underthings."

Shelly had never known her aunt to be in any way irrational or senile. A little forgetful from time to time, but no more than anyone else. It had to come eventually, she supposed. She sighed and patted the old woman's shriveled hand.

"I can take you to Hinckley's in town to shop," Shelly said. Hinckley was the town's variety store, without much variety to it.

"Thank you for offering. I know you would. But I don't enjoy shopping in the stores like I used to. I get so tired. And Sears' prices are much better. I read Hinckley's advertisements in the paper, and they charge a sight for everything."

"How about if I go for you? You just tell me what you want. I can find something like what you see in the catalogue, and then you'll have it right away, instead of waiting a long time for your order to arrive." She hoped this last would take her aunt's mind off the difference between Hinckley's prices and Sears' prices of half a century earlier.

Adela said in a pleasant but firm tone, "Now, I don't mind waiting a bit in order to save some money. I'm an old Scotswoman, you know," she said with a smile, "and I'm never so happy as when I can save a penny. Oh, I'm a canny old bargain hunter. But you can help me fill out the order form and mail it for me."

"Now, here's the order form," Adela said, pulling it from between the pages neatly and carefully. Shelly noted that Adela had already marked certain pages by sticking empty envelopes between them. "You mark it for me while I show you .... I just can't see so well to read and write anymore in those little spaces. All right, here are the towels. These here. Order six bath towels. Blue. I like the white ones but then we always bleach them and they don't last as long. Mine are just about in rags. Course we can always use good rags for cleaning. Can you see to read the numbers? And order six washcloths to go with them. And hand towels too. Six. I'll have a whole new set. New ones for me, for you, and for Caroline."

Shelly saw that she had ordered the medium quality towels from the 1947 catalogue, not the better, most expensive ones.

"These here are better, Auntie. Thicker. If they cost too much, I'll give you the difference."

"It's not the money. I do believe in buying good quality for something you want to use for a long time. But the fact is, those real thick ones are hard for me to handle. They're right heavy. And I can't wipe my ears out with them, nor even with those thick washcloths."

"Oh, well, that makes sense." Shelly filled in the numbers and her aunt turned the pages.

"All right, here's the ladies' underthings. I want this white cotton slip. Size 8. Order two of them. And these drawers. Five pairs. Oh, maybe I'll be daring and order pink ones instead of white. I think the ones with the days of the week embroidered on them are silly, don't you? What happens when you go to sleep on Tuesday and suddenly at midnight it turns to Wednesday?" She laughed. "Your underpants are wrong half the time."

Shelly laughed with her, thinking all the while, What happens when it suddenly becomes 1947?

"I'm going to be extravagant and buy this collar for Kitty-Pop, with the little brass bell. Give the birds a fighting chance. He's still a great hunter, you know."

"I'm glad to hear it. But the bell might warn off the mice too."

Kitty-Pop, a fluffy black and white cat with long, long whiskers, purred from the back of the couch.

"Well, he deserves something fancy anyway. Let's see. Oh Lordy, I almost forgot. There's no way around it, that old washing machine has got to be replaced." She riffled through more pages. "Caroline really can't struggle with that old contraption anymore, it just isn't working right and we can't get the parts anymore, they say. Or it wouldn't be worth the cost to repair it. Something like that. It wasn't a Sears machine, you know. Write down this one." She pointed to a photo of a gleaming white, double-barreled electric washer with a wringer attached. This was too much. Shelly could find her towels, underwear, and a cat collar with a brass bell, but where would she find a brand new wringer washer? Or even a used one in working condition?

"You know, Auntie, this kind is so much more work for Caroline. Let me find a nice automatic washer for you. My dad knows a guy with an appliance store. We'll have one shipped."

"What do you mean? This is automatic. See, it's all electric, even the wringer."

"But the kind with no wringer, all automatic, it would be so much easier for Caroline."

"She likes the wringer, she says it gets the clothes cleaner than the other kind." Adela seemed to be getting a trifle agitated, so Shelly said no more. Probably the old woman would forget it all soon anyway. Shelly could say the washer was being back-ordered. Maybe someone still made electric wringer washers, but why would they? Maybe she could find an old one that still worked, get it painted. Adela probably wouldn't notice if it was brand new or not.

About a week had passed since she mailed the envelope to Sears. Shelly was drowsing in the sun on a blanket, watching ants crawl over the red peonies and listening to the bees. She was blissfully semi-conscious, even though she knew she would have to go back home and back to work soon. For now, her only plan was to move her blanket around back when the sun shifted, to where morning glories wound around the clothesline poles. She intended to watch the laundry dry in the breeze. Or should she try something new, and lie down in the vegetable garden, in the dirt between the rows of tomatoes, and eat warm tomatoes off the vine until she broke out in red splotches? She had purpose: to even out her flea market tan and let her hair turn bronze in the sun.

Or should she climb the willow tree with the big scar on the trunk? As a little girl, she had thought the scars where limbs had been cut off were fairy doors. They looked like miniature oval wooden doors surrounded by swollen frames of bark. She used to knock on them, hoping fairies would come out ... and then what? Grant her wishes? She would knock three times, then three times three, but the fairies never appeared. She had continued to believe anyway, and thought that she just didn't know the secret, the key to the door; she wasn't doing it right.

The drone of bees gave way to the drone of a motor down the road. She turned her head, hoping she wouldn't need to get more dressed than she was, in her thigh-high, almost-a-thong bathing suit which scandalized her aunt, though not enough to make her criticize Shelly for wearing it. It was probably Mr. Yoder driving his tractor from one field to another. She wasn't very visible from the road where she was. She closed her eyes, and opened them again when a moment later a truck came up the driveway and parked. Startled awake, Shelly jumped up and hastily put on an oversized T-shirt. A man got out of the delivery van and they looked at each other silently for a few seconds. Shelly was frowning. Privacy - outdoor privacy - was the one luxury she found at her aunt's house that she seldom enjoyed anywhere else.

"Mrs. Forester?" the man asked.

"That's my aunt."

"Oh. Well, I have a delivery for her."

Shelly removed her sunglasses and walked toward him. The truck said Sears. But it was an old truck. No, it was a new truck, but with the voluptuous curved fenders of an old vehicle. A reproduction, perhaps, or a really good restoration. Nothing used about it except a layer of road dust. The man was wearing a uniform, matching pants and shirt, a patch that said "Jackson" on the pocket, and a hat that said "Sears." She frowned again.

"What delivery?" she said stupidly, reading SEARS painted in large letters on the truck.

"Some household items, and a washing machine. Some clothes. It's all on the packing list. Ordinarily they'd come by freight, but there was a little problem. Your aunt forgot to sign the check. So I came out in person."

"From Chicago?" Shelly asked. She'd mailed the envelope to Chicago.

"Is your aunt home?" he asked politely.

Shelly thought he didn't look as though he'd driven all the way from Chicago. His clothes still held their creases where they'd been ironed in, and he didn't have a road-tired expression. Neither did he have the big-city edginess she would have expected. He seemed to have no attitude at all; he exuded a calm and neutral air. Shelly, however, was losing her afternoon placidity.

"Did my mother send you?" she asked. "Or my father? I asked them to send some things."

"Well, I've got this order form here, with directions to ship everything to Adela Forester."

Shelly looked at the paper in his hand. It was the form she had filled out for her aunt. She had asked her parents to send the towels and other things, but they had never had that order form.

"Let me see what you've got in there," Shelly said, stepping to the back doors of the van. He opened the doors, and she saw a cardboard carton and a big wooden crate, and nothing else.

"The washing machine's in that crate, and the smaller items are all in that carton," he volunteered. "Here's the packing slip and invoice."

More papers.

"Let me see what's in the box, before I get my aunt. She's ... very old." Which meant nothing. She vaguely worried that her aunt would be disappointed if Sears sent modern substitutes. But why were they sending anything at all?

"Oh, I see."

What did he see? Shelly wondered with irritation. But irritation only with her own confusion. The man himself was perfectly pleasant. More than pleasant. He was about 30, she guessed, good looking, well built - had to be, to move appliances around. Beautiful forearms and hands, she thought absent-mindedly. He had a little oil or pomade in his hair, though. Foreign? But his accent was pure American. She shook herself and watched as he put the carton out onto the gravel and cut the tape. Shelly looked through the box and compared its contents to the packing slip in her hand. Inside were the towel sets, the slips, and the cat collar. They all matched the pictures in the 1947 Sears catalogue. And they were all obviously brand new. He hauled the crate down the truck's loading ramp with a dolly, and pried open one panel. Inside was a gorgeous, round, white enamelled washing machine with a wringer. An antique. Brand new.

Shelly's mind came to a standstill. This did not compute. She felt like Alice in Wonderland when she landed at the bottom of the rabbit hole. She stared speechless for a moment, then exhaled and laughed. "Oh, I get it. My aunt used to order from Sears catalogues all the time, for years, all her life. My god, she's nearly as old as Sears herself. And of course you still have her name in your customer lists. I mean, even if you're not doing mail order, you wouldn't throw out the files. So when the mail order business ended, there must have been lots of old customers like her feeling stranded. So this is a goodwill gesture, right? A special promotion. Good PR. But wherever did you get this old stuff? It's fantastic!"

Once Shelly had manufactured this explanation, her mind leaped ahead; her mouth was practically watering at the thought of a warehouse of old Sears goods in mint condition. A dealer's dream. Not that there weren't plenty of people who prized something more because it showed its age.

"Is that an anchor on your arm?" Adela asked as Shelly appeared with the lemonade. His sleeves were rolled high up on his arms, above the biceps.

"Yes, ma'am. I was in the Navy. South Pacific." The anchor was labeled "USN." "There's one on my other arm too." He twisted around to show another tattoo, a girl in a grass skirt kneeling under a palm tree, captioned "Remember Pearl."

"Pearl Harbor," Adela said.

"The Navy has a long memory," Shelly said, smiling.

Jackson looked at her with a curious expression on his face, but said nothing.

Sears must have unearthed an old, forgotten stock warehouse somewhere. It was amazing that the antique dealers' publications hadn't mentioned it. Maybe she had missed some issues. Dealers wouldn't necessarily share something like that; they would have been sniffing around, trying to find those few very special customers for themselves ... if they couldn't order from Sears themselves.

Order from Sears.

Shelly stopped in her tracks, between a lilac bush and the porch. Kitty-Pop was lying in the cool shade; she looked at him, but she was really seeing Aunt Adela's catalogue.

"Wow."

"Meow."

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