- What's up y'all?
I'm here with comedian Joyelle Johnson, give it up!
So if you've ever shopped at a flea market,
you've probably seen those piles of old letters
and photographs for sale.
You may have wondered, like, where do these come from?
What happened to their owners? Why are they here?
Well my next guest has those same questions.
She's had those and decided to do something about it.
She's known as The Heirloom Hunter.
She collects family heirlooms and returns them
to the next of kin, all free of charge.
Say hi to Chelsey everybody!
So meet Joyelle.
- Nice to meet you, gorgeous.
- [Chelsey] Her eyeliner is amazing.
- [Kelly] I know!
- We both got fingernails.
- Yes, that is true, our nails--
- I know, but the glitter I've been watching.
I know all, both your finger, I know mine are so basic.
Okay, let's move on.
So wait, this is so unique.
I mean, what's your process like?
So you buy one, like do you buy specifically things
you think you have a chance at finding? Obviously.
- So I always try and find items with identifying marks.
Names, date, locations.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- The more the merrier.
There is a myth that these items
just end up at the flea market
because people throw them out, which is so not the case.
Most of these items end up at the flea market
because of family drama.
So for example, someone gets access to an estate
and then doesn't give the items to the rest of the family.
But basically what I do is I just,
I put in all names and locations into an online database
and I just see what pops up.
So sometimes a census record will pop up,
sometimes a public family tree
where I can message the owner of that public family tree.
But it really just depends on each item.
But one of my favorite returns
was actually Valentine's day cards from around World War II.
And what's special about these cards,
and what was emotional for me about them
were honestly, it was just the return.
I returned them to the granddaughter
of the couple who sent back and forth Valentine's day cards
while the husband was in the Navy.
And the granddaughter said to me
when she received the cards, was,
it felt like you brought my grandparents back
for those few moments that I was reading the card.
- Oh my God, she's.
- Girl, I got lashes on.
- I'm sorry.
- Girl, I got.
- [Kelly] It's so sweet.
- But it was one of my most special returns
and I was weeping, she was weeping,
it was just a lot of weeping.
Yeah.
- She is weeping.
Do you have anything in like your,
the only thing I have in my family thing, I think,
for my mom is my grandmother, and it's like vinyl records.
And I think my mom gave them to me, obviously,
the musician in the family.
But do you have anything in your family that you?
- I have this Swarovski ring
that I got for my 40th birthday for myself.
So...
this will be a family heirloom.
- So this will be a family heirloom?
- Yes. I love it. That is a family heirloom.
- It will not end up in a thrift store.
- So, we will be passing this on.
You are starting it.
- Yeah.
- So wait, so this is beautiful work
but it's gotta be pretty emotional, right?
- Yes.
- Have you ever showed up and given something
to someone and then it didn't go well?
- Yes. So, but not in the way that you would expect.
So I found love letters from the 1960s
and I returned them to a woman who's still alive.
The would-be recipient.
And she had never received the letters.
So when I gave them to her,
it was her first time reading them.
And it was very traumatic for her
because that was someone who she was dating
and she never received those.
She thought he just stopped corresponding with her,
but he didn't.
- Oh no!
- She thought he ghosted?
- Yeah.
- Oh my goodness.
- So, it, yeah, yep.
- It's a first ghosting right there.
- Yes!
- And so it brings up that question, like,
could they have ended up together
if she did receive the letters back in the 60s?
So that was painful for her,
it was painful for me, but it wasn't painful.
She was so glad that I did return those letters.
- Yeah.
- But it was more of, or give them to her
for the first time.
But--
- Because imagine the healing that could come from that,
you know what I'm saying?
Like knowing that you weren't ghosted.
- Yeah.
- Right? And I think that did cause, I mean,
listen, it provided closure.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- For her.
- [Kelly] Amen.
- And I mean, she's remarried now and very happy, but--
- Wouldn't it be funny if she walked in,
and she was like I could have ended up with him!
- Yeah. Wait.
I'm waiting for her to just walk in right now.
- Yeah yeah.
- [Chelsey] Right?
- So, in some ways
you're following in your father's footsteps.
Because I heard he's a genealogist, was he?
- [Chelsey] Yes. That is correct.
- That's amazing.
- So my dad is a genealogist and growing up,
so I'd see him help families all around the world.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- For free, by the way.
And--
- Is that Downton Abbey?
- That is Downton Abbey.
Yep.
- [Joyelle] Your girl knows a castle.
- Yep.
I know Downton Abbey very well.
But I saw him help families all around the world for free.
And I have to admit growing up I did not find it cool.
Especially when I was a teenager.
- Yeah.
No, we never find cool stuff cool when we're young, yeah.
- Of course.
And I do think though it did hurt my dad's feelings
in a way, but as I grew up
I started to become more attached to genealogy.
I started enjoying it more.
- Yeah.
- It's really fantastic.
- So one of your most beloved discoveries was letters.
They were letters written by Holocaust survivor?
- Survivor. Yes they were. So--
- How intense was that, first of all? Just reading it.
- I was, well, since starting this journey
I have to admit that Holocaust documentation
has been my number one priority,
getting it off of the market.
Unfortunately, people do sell Holocaust documentation
either underground or at auction for very high prices.
But reading that letter was very emotional for me,
especially that return.
The letter was basically to say,
it was the day that Ilse left the camp and she,
the letter was to her sister in England
basically telling her that everyone in her family had died.
Mom, dad, two sisters and her husband.
And so yes, but the story behind this letter
and how I got it is actually pretty interesting.
There's a Spender that I always use in New York city.
Well, not anymore, we'll get to that.
But I frequently get love letters from him.
And I remember in passing in October
he mentioned that he had Holocaust documentation at home,
hundreds of documents that he was gonna sell
for thousands of dollars. Disgusting.
But I knew I had to get my hands on those items.
So I started this strategy to get him, to persuade him
to show me the letters, to bring them in.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- And so I found the translation of that letter
and the second that I found the translation
and I knew what it was,
I knew I couldn't tell him what it actually was
because if I did, he either wouldn't have sold me the letter
or would've sold it to me for thousands of dollars.
So I told a little fib and I just said,
the letter was about food stamps
and could I buy it to give to the family?
And so I did. I bought it, but.
- Sneaky!
- Sneaky, but, and to be honest,
I would do it again in a heartbeat.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- And I was able to--
- You're trying to get it to the family.
- [Chelsey] Yes.
- Yeah.
- [Chelsey] And there's a moral aspect that comes with it.
- I mean sneaky in a good way.
There's good sneaky.
- I would do it again in a heartbeat if I could.
- Oh, well we actually have Ilse's great niece Jill
dialed in right now.
So, hi Jill.
- Hi.
- So Jill,
what did you think when you first heard from Chelsey?
- I was really blown away and amazed by her kindness
and the fact that she would spend her time and energies
reaching out to connect me with a letter
in the actual handwriting of my favorite great aunt
who was really more like a grandmother to me growing up
because she didn't have any children of her own.
And she, herself in her youth,
they say she looked like the actress, Marlene Dietrich.
She was blonde and blue eyed, so she could pass as Aryan.
She actually was part of an underground organization
in Berlin that was actually protesting the fascists
early into the 1940s.
And then when she was captured
she was actually sent on a transport train to Auschwitz,
which amazingly she jumped off.
One of the only people who survived such transports
and went back to Berlin, was hidden underground.
And this letter is shortly after liberation.
She's writing to her only surviving sister.
And as Chelsey said, she's telling them
for the first time that their other two sisters,
their brother-in-law, their parents,
and Ilse's second husband Gerhardt
had all been murdered.
And it's just unbelievable that this is the emotion
that she must have had to put in this letter,
to send it.
And on the receiving end, to be the one to find out
that your family is gone.
- Yeah, I don't get. I, can you imagine like
unexpectedly just receiving family letters?
Like anything like that?
- Oh, yeah.
Well, my great great grandfather
was a part of the slave narrative.
So we like, he sent, you know, letters and stuff,
and they documented his experience in slavery. So.
- So you have actually?
- [Joyelle] Yeah.
- That's hard.
- Yeah. Absolutely.
- But also a reason to like, I guess,
be so thankful for that,
for the fact that like you get this life right now,
you know what I'm saying?
Like we all get this life right now.
- Absolutely. Yes.
- Jill, what does it mean to you and your family
to have these letters back?
And you know, it's in in her words, it's in her handwriting.
That's pretty amazing.
- It's really wonderful.
And the letters themselves, like the one that you showed,
the first line, it translated says
through the kindness of our liberators.
So that really epitomized my great aunt,
of what she was like, that just, this sense of gratitude
she kept up after the war,
when the tables turned and she was in the US,
she sent needed supplies and money
to the people who had hidden her
and helped them rebuild their lives in postwar Germany.
And just to have this memorial that I hope to frame
and put in my room in my home,
so that anybody who sees them can see and ask me about it,
can learn Chelsey's story,
and learn that there are people who do good in the world.
That Chelsey is someone who takes their own energy and time
and money and efforts and talents
and reaches out and connects people like me
with a piece of my family that's gone
is, I'm forever grateful
- And history is so important. So important.
So we don't forget it.
- No. We can't forget. Never forget.
That's why people say never forget.
- I love that. Thank you so much, Chelsey.
Thank you so much, Jill, for sharing.