Chester Drawers & The Piedmont Hoochie-Coochie: Facebook Marketplace

“For me, it all began with Chester Drawers, but let me go back even further, to another befuddled listener, James Thurber, whose maid, Delia, announced to him one Christmas, ‘They are here with the reeves.’ Perhaps, hereabouts, one always hangs one’s reeves above one’s chester drawers, and one is immediately understood? For anyone dropped down into South Carolina from the North, or farther afield, however, our tendency here to spell it like we hear it takes some getting used to, and even descendants of generations of Upcountry Carolinians and Virginians down our maternal line are, on occasion, flummoxed.”—Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

Hapax Legomenon

By Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

“South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum.”―James L. Petigru

“I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.”―Flannery O’Connor, from The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor

“Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.”―Flannery O’Connor, from Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

PENDLETON South Carolina—(Hubris)—January/February 2025—For me, it all began with Chester Drawers, but let me go back even further, to another befuddled listener, James Thurber, whose maid, Delia, announced to him one Christmas, “They are here with the reeves.” Perhaps, hereabouts, one always hangs one’s reeves above one’s chester drawers, and one is immediately understood? For anyone dropped down into South Carolina from the North, or farther afield, however, our tendency here to spell it like we hear it takes some getting used to, and even descendants of generations of Upcountry Carolinians and Virginians down our maternal line are, on occasion, flummoxed.

It was my “booth partner” at The Rock House Antiques in Greenville, South Carolina (and a similarly pedigreed Southerner of A Certain Age & Native Speaker of Delia’s Tongue), Jeanne van den Hurk, who first introduced me to the addictive and inscrutable charms of local Facebook Marketplace listings, which would become one source of antiques and collectibles for our little business—if we could figure out what was being advertised for sale (and if we wanted such a thing). Often, even the photographs of items on offer were of little help.

Southerners are well acquainted with the chiffarobe, which is not a character out of Edward Lear but, rather, an item of furniture first advertised in the 1908 Sears, Roebuck Catalogue, as “a modern invention, having been in use only a short time.” Chiffarobes are closet-like pieces of furniture that combine a long space for hanging clothes (that is, a wardrobe or armoire) with a chest of drawers. (Scratch a chiffarobe, and you’re right back to chester drawers!) But what, pray tell is a shefrobe? Well, someone in Liberty, South Carolina, just uphill from me here in Pendleton, has one to sell, and seems to have got a photo of it as it was attempting to dematerialize in what I presume is its native habitat.

Jeanne and I, possessed of a similar sense of humor, have now got into the habit of sharing with one another these astonishing items, our Facebook Messages going and coming at all hours with little forewarning of their contents and unannotated. We might be binge-watching some Netflix series, propped up on pillows with our spouses, and something like the following will land. It’s not like any knickknack with which I’m familiar, nor am I in the habit of displaying dusty tchotchkes in the center of my table, but Jeanne thought I should know such a thing exists.

It was obvious, too, that I needed to be informed of the existence, in Spartanburg, of the heavenly gates, or what passes for them over there, though their pricing, “$100 a pice obo,” remains inscrutable, and they may be like new, or fairly new; their owner seemingly unable to decide.

Lest you think South Carolinians are the exclusive speakers of Facebook Marketplace’s Southern Idiom, Georgians are here to prove you wrong. Jeanne threw down the following gauntlet as proof. Here’s what I know about mercury glass, by the way (and probably more than is strictly necessary): “Mercury glass (or silvered glass) is glass that has been blown double-walled, then silvered between the layers with a liquid silvering solution, and sealed. Although mercury was originally used to provide the reflective coating for mirrors, elemental mercury was never used to create tableware. Silvered glass was free-blown, then silvered with a solution containing silver nitrate and grape sugar in solution, heated, then closed. Sealing methods include metal discs covered with a glass round or a cork inserted into the unpolished pontil scar. ‘Mercury’ silvered glass was produced originally from around 1840 until at least 1930 in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic), Germany, and was also manufactured in England from 1849 to 1855.”

But, as far as Jeanne and I know, the seller in Woodstock is the first to have silvered a gauntlet, which worries us about the overall “theme” of his or her house, in general. She and I concurred: “Let this particular goblet pass from us!”

And while we were not interested in acquiring a chester drawers, a shefrobe, a mercury glass gauntlet (or passing through the pastor gates), we were, as well, not driving to Clarksville (those Georgians at it again!) to collect an expensive roaster (which appears, in fact, to have lost its beak). I mean, if you’re trying to sell something, why tout it as expensive, I ask, even if “very nice”?

Moving right along, and back in South Carolina in historic Cowpens, nine miles from where the Battle of Cowpens was fought on January 17, 1781, someone is parting with lamps he’s held dear heretofore, along with accompanying accoutrements, God help us. These fixtures seem anything but dear to Jeanne and me, as one risks impaling oneself turning on or off the light, or reaching for a book, presumably one on taxidermy.

And lest you think Southern Facebook Marketplace items consist only of goods produced elsewhere, the work of local artists is well represented (well, at least it’s represented). Consider the following six items, which I list here in a grouping I call “Artworks by Upcountry Outsider-Outsider-Outsider-Best-Kept-Outsider Artists.”

I can assure readers, as well, that the “VERY LARGE, UNIQUE BIRDHOUSE” (caps supplied by the maker), and “wood carving heads,” at which the artist is tired of looking are anything but rare sightings in my neck of the woods. And these “artistes” often excel as wordsmiths as well. Consider this description of the sculpture pictured below: “Enhance your home decor with this Ceramic Sculpture titled Agony. Handcrafted with a textured surface that mimics fur or wood grain, this piece exudes rustic charm and natural elegance. Its simplified, stylized form, possibly representing a rabbit, adds a touch of whimsy to any setting.” How could one resist? One would be hard-pressed not to rush right out to Greenville, Monroe, and Gainesville to acquire the following:

Facebook Marketplace’s Purveyors of Needful Things wax creative in diverse ways (and an astonishing array of media). If, and say if, you were searching (in vain) for a coffee/snack bar cum tv stand cum beverage center (complete with empty liquor bottles) cum bookcase cum pet bed, and I do mean all of the above, someone in Buford, Georgia will deliver one to you, if only locally.

The fellow in Buford has a soul mate in Harrisburg, North Carolina who has fashioned a “handmade shadowbox wall bar with glass top,” in which (presumably) you may display your treasures while standing/drinking over them, but he now wants to get rid of it . . . for a paltry $250.

Marketplace, has, as well, lots of items to procure for more practical purposes. If you’re nostalgic for décor that went out (and down the drain) in the 1960s and early 70s, yearn no more. For a (pretty steep) price, an individual in Anderson, South Carolina (too close for comfort to where I am tryping this) has two beauties of yesteryear for sale, though he can’t seem to decide what color they are (nor can I). And, I ask you, do you love pink (or raspberry) so much that you’re willing to pay $500 for a used pair of these things?

From here on, I warn you, the listings Jeanne and I have . . . endured veer off into the just weird, and weirder. There are edibles for sale on Marketplace though, if you’re peddling edibles, wouldn’t you think you’d want them to look, well, edible? As well as, perhaps, come served . . . in a jar? Not in Spartanburg!

And I did say things would get even weirder? Consider the following two offerings, from Jefferson, Georgia and Lincolnton, North Carolina, respectively, towns I intend to give a much wider berth from here on out.

And perhaps you’ll forgive me if the next pair of items (well, I assume the listing includes two shoes, though we’re only shown the left) follows closely on the dolls above, but it gave me about the same level of willies. “I put my arm in so show you what it looks like?” Lord preserve us! On first looking at the photograph, I thought that was your foot!

From here on out, Gentle Reader, we’re in the Twilight Zone. It’s bad enough that Jeanne and I usually text one another these listings after dark, or after we’ve both turned off our phones (and since the last election, we’re both incommunicado and nursing deep wounds so, so much of the time), but at least the recipient gets to share the visual burden in daylight.

The next three listings are in a category of their own, which I call “Why In God’s Name?!”

OK, so someone in Taylors (How? Why?!) has a genuine Delta Airlines cabin door which they intended to make into a table (well, why wouldn’t they?) but, since they’ve lost interest, here, you take it. For $350. Not like Delta needs it any longer.

And there’s more, but I’m not dying to get over to Greer to “make it mine.”

We’re on a roll here, though, so why slow down, though the fellow in Franklin should decide if what’s on offer is rare or one-of-a-kind.

Let me close, for the time being, with an item from tiny Piedmont, South Carolina, a town so small you’d not think anyone there would have one of these things, let alone be willing to part with it if they did. Goes to show you! And though I realize that, in sending up (as the Brits have it) the residents of my red, red state and their hillbilly ways, I am not being at all nice, and thus disappointing all the now long dead women in my mother’s family, I do apologize, and take consolation in knowing Flannery O’Connor blazed this trail before me, she who wrote, ““I don’t deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.”

To order Elizabeth Boleman-Herring’s memoir and/or her erotic novel, click on the book covers below: