WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:07.039 --> 00:00:09.739 Candace Dellacona: Welcome to the Sandwich Generation Survival Guide. 00:00:09.739 --> 00:00:12.059 I am your host, Candace Dellacona. 00:00:12.079 --> 00:00:18.889 I am delighted to welcome Genice Lee from Harvest Estate and 00:00:18.889 --> 00:00:21.529 Appraisals straight outta Texas. 00:00:21.529 --> 00:00:22.709 Welcome, Genice. 00:00:23.509 --> 00:00:24.979 Genice Lee: Glad to be here. 00:00:25.049 --> 00:00:26.429 Thank you so much for having me. 00:00:26.789 --> 00:00:28.199 Candace Dellacona: I am so excited to have you. 00:00:28.199 --> 00:00:34.389 We had such an interesting conversation and I wish that our listeners were on 00:00:34.389 --> 00:00:38.199 for that first conversation, but I'm gonna do my best to share with our 00:00:38.199 --> 00:00:40.229 listeners and all the folks out there. 00:00:41.099 --> 00:00:46.169 How you impacted the way that I think about things like legacy. 00:00:46.169 --> 00:00:50.309 So we're gonna get right into it, but I want everyone to know that you 00:00:50.309 --> 00:00:55.889 not only are the owner of Harvest Estate and Appraisals out of Texas, 00:00:55.889 --> 00:00:57.569 which by the way is nationwide. 00:00:57.939 --> 00:01:02.389 You're highly educated having, your undergrad degree from UDub, great 00:01:02.389 --> 00:01:07.829 state of Washington in Japan regional studies, and you are Alma Mater you 00:01:07.829 --> 00:01:13.739 and I share is American University in Washington DC and you have been certified 00:01:13.739 --> 00:01:19.129 by multiple organizations including being an accredited senior appraiser 00:01:19.685 --> 00:01:24.035 from the Smithsonian Resident Program, you're part of the Uniform Standards 00:01:24.035 --> 00:01:25.805 of Professional Appraisal Practice. 00:01:25.805 --> 00:01:31.055 You've appeared on PBS's television show, Antique Road Show's, sister 00:01:31.055 --> 00:01:37.865 Show, Chesapeake Collectible, and you are passionate about talking about 00:01:37.865 --> 00:01:42.125 preserving culture and building legacy. 00:01:42.125 --> 00:01:45.725 So that's really what I would love to talk with you about today. 00:01:46.622 --> 00:01:48.102 So welcome, Genice. 00:01:48.122 --> 00:01:51.212 That is quite an intro, but you are quite, quite the expert, so 00:01:51.212 --> 00:01:52.502 we're so happy to have you here. 00:01:53.842 --> 00:01:54.682 Genice Lee: Again, thank you. 00:01:54.682 --> 00:01:55.672 I'm glad to be here. 00:01:55.672 --> 00:01:58.282 And yes very passionate about legacy. 00:01:59.055 --> 00:02:05.105 How to transfer and pass these objects and the stories through families. 00:02:05.435 --> 00:02:09.125 In our prior discussion, we were talking about shows like the Antique 00:02:09.125 --> 00:02:14.105 Road Show and Chesapeake Collectibles and why people love those shows so 00:02:14.105 --> 00:02:19.595 much, I really believe goes beyond the object, but really it is the story that 00:02:19.595 --> 00:02:22.240 connects the families to the object. 00:02:22.420 --> 00:02:26.270 That really is what draws the viewers in and why people love 00:02:26.270 --> 00:02:27.770 to come on the show and talk. 00:02:27.770 --> 00:02:30.740 They love to share the stories from their family. 00:02:30.980 --> 00:02:36.590 I just flew back in from Maryland filming Chesapeake Collectibles newest season 00:02:36.590 --> 00:02:38.660 that'll air in the spring of next year. 00:02:39.050 --> 00:02:42.345 And I tell you, it was just fun. 00:02:42.395 --> 00:02:46.705 The stories and we even had someone on there who came in with one of those 00:02:46.855 --> 00:02:49.085 stories people love, that Goodwill find. 00:02:49.105 --> 00:02:55.195 She found an object at Goodwill for $7 and it ended up being worth three to $5,000. 00:02:55.195 --> 00:02:57.775 And so those are the stories that people just love. 00:02:58.180 --> 00:02:58.930 Candace Dellacona: Absolutely. 00:02:58.930 --> 00:03:03.450 But I think, even before we get there, I wanted to talk to you about how 00:03:03.450 --> 00:03:09.390 you got into this sort of rarefied world of appraising valuables. 00:03:09.390 --> 00:03:13.600 So share with us your trajectory, how you got here. 00:03:14.597 --> 00:03:19.387 Genice Lee: The space of valuation, which is really what the industry is. 00:03:19.397 --> 00:03:22.697 We're valuers, we assign value to objects. 00:03:23.067 --> 00:03:29.367 Started for me with a love of history and seeing things in my grandparents' 00:03:29.367 --> 00:03:31.647 home and having questions about them. 00:03:31.647 --> 00:03:35.957 And then as time went on, I became one of those people who loved that thrill 00:03:35.957 --> 00:03:39.777 of the hunt we were just talking about looking for that hidden treasure. 00:03:39.777 --> 00:03:44.267 And my husband, with his very practical side said you keep buying 00:03:44.447 --> 00:03:47.117 things and our house is starting to look like a thrift store. 00:03:47.387 --> 00:03:49.937 Do you think you could figure out a way to turn that passion 00:03:49.937 --> 00:03:52.097 into a way to monetize it? 00:03:52.382 --> 00:03:56.702 And so I took that challenge up and started the classes at George Washington 00:03:56.702 --> 00:04:00.962 University in Washington, DC, a certification through them joining 00:04:00.962 --> 00:04:04.772 the American Society of Appraisers, getting accredited with them, 00:04:05.042 --> 00:04:07.162 taking classes with the Smithsonian. 00:04:07.572 --> 00:04:12.100 But I would say a switch that really flipped for me that I understood 00:04:12.100 --> 00:04:15.790 the struggles of my clients is when my own mother passed away 00:04:15.790 --> 00:04:17.830 being the executor of her estate. 00:04:18.580 --> 00:04:25.240 I had the skillset to do the inventorying and getting those objects for the closing 00:04:25.240 --> 00:04:30.010 of her estate, but I then understood the struggles of clients dealing with 00:04:30.490 --> 00:04:35.030 the dynamics in a family, whether it's a blended family, whether it's added to 00:04:35.030 --> 00:04:41.850 families from marriage stepchildren, new husbands you're trying to mourn the loss 00:04:41.850 --> 00:04:46.530 of a loved one well as the courts are telling you certain documents have to be 00:04:46.530 --> 00:04:48.720 presented to them in a timely fashion. 00:04:49.080 --> 00:04:51.300 You're dealing with companies, you're trying to close out 00:04:51.300 --> 00:04:56.670 accounts, and in the midst of all of that, it really hit home for me. 00:04:56.970 --> 00:04:59.850 Some of the additional struggles that my clients had. 00:05:00.300 --> 00:05:04.230 I had not seen those before, even though I was working with these same 00:05:04.230 --> 00:05:09.180 issues, but I was on the outside looking in, and so I really had a compassion 00:05:09.180 --> 00:05:12.780 for those clients that couldn't go back into a loved one's home because 00:05:12.780 --> 00:05:16.290 they were still grieving and they needed someone to help them with that. 00:05:16.550 --> 00:05:18.620 So that's really how my journey started. 00:05:19.260 --> 00:05:22.320 Candace Dellacona: That is one of the things about any of us who 00:05:22.320 --> 00:05:24.480 have that sort of passion, right? 00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:30.750 Is that something impacts you personally and it changes your view 00:05:30.810 --> 00:05:34.350 of what maybe you were doing in the past or the way in which you were 00:05:34.350 --> 00:05:36.900 handling those objects in the past. 00:05:36.950 --> 00:05:42.950 I appreciate your perspective as both the professional and as the daughter. 00:05:43.580 --> 00:05:48.290 So tell me, when you were going through the process of dealing with your 00:05:48.290 --> 00:05:53.750 mom's estate, what were the issues that came up for you from a personal 00:05:53.750 --> 00:06:00.360 perspective that you felt were sort of at odds from your role as finding 00:06:01.050 --> 00:06:03.180 economic value, if we should say. 00:06:03.180 --> 00:06:06.840 So more about the connection to the object. 00:06:06.870 --> 00:06:10.770 Can you think of any specific example that came up for you when 00:06:10.770 --> 00:06:11.875 you were going through that process? 00:06:13.405 --> 00:06:17.995 Genice Lee: I was fortunate in dealing with my mom's estate that 00:06:17.995 --> 00:06:23.175 she did all the things that you would hope that people do in preparing. 00:06:23.565 --> 00:06:26.955 I know one of the things that we talked about is that a lot of times 00:06:26.995 --> 00:06:29.545 people will prepare for a baby, right? 00:06:29.545 --> 00:06:31.705 Everyone's excited about that new life. 00:06:32.095 --> 00:06:34.855 There's the baby shower, there's establishing bank 00:06:34.855 --> 00:06:35.725 accounts and college funds. 00:06:36.905 --> 00:06:41.315 But a lot of times people shy away from having that much consideration 00:06:41.315 --> 00:06:45.425 in transferring to when they're not gonna be here or how their loved 00:06:45.425 --> 00:06:47.045 ones are going to deal with that. 00:06:47.435 --> 00:06:50.855 And so my mom had done a lot of the right things. 00:06:50.855 --> 00:06:56.375 She had a will, and she left the ledger of bank accounts 00:06:56.375 --> 00:06:58.475 and where to find information. 00:06:58.595 --> 00:07:03.395 Added complexity to that scenario was that my mother had remarried, my 00:07:03.395 --> 00:07:08.945 father had passed away, and so I was now dealing with this blended family 00:07:08.945 --> 00:07:11.875 of a father who had his own children. 00:07:12.415 --> 00:07:14.775 And most things went smoothly. 00:07:14.775 --> 00:07:19.965 However, there was this one account where the paperwork somehow 00:07:20.745 --> 00:07:23.190 didn't get processed correctly. 00:07:23.190 --> 00:07:26.850 And I specifically remembered that my mother had requested the information 00:07:26.850 --> 00:07:28.590 from my younger sister and myself. 00:07:29.310 --> 00:07:33.150 so that threw a monkey wrench into now all of a sudden we're faced 00:07:33.150 --> 00:07:37.910 with a probate issue and having the correct paperworks and even sometimes 00:07:37.910 --> 00:07:42.680 having power of attorney can be challenged by a bank or an institution. 00:07:42.680 --> 00:07:45.350 And so there were just a lot of dynamics that. 00:07:45.785 --> 00:07:50.405 Where it should have been smooth sailing because I had all of the documentation. 00:07:50.645 --> 00:07:54.725 I still needed to speak with a lawyer, and I'm glad that I had someone that 00:07:54.725 --> 00:07:58.775 I could go to and talk to about the challenges of getting her estate done. 00:07:58.775 --> 00:08:02.055 But for the most part, things went smoothly. 00:08:02.205 --> 00:08:05.655 I, above everything wanted to honor her wishes, which she spelled 00:08:05.655 --> 00:08:08.220 out quite concisely in her will. 00:08:09.210 --> 00:08:13.680 As to who was to get what, how things were to be split, how she wanted things done. 00:08:14.010 --> 00:08:18.150 And I would say on a personal note, a very transparent note, one 00:08:18.150 --> 00:08:21.930 of the bigger hiccups was that my mother didn't want a funeral and my 00:08:21.930 --> 00:08:23.790 grandparents wanted her to have one. 00:08:24.180 --> 00:08:28.710 And so to stand up to them and say, no, we're not gonna have a funeral 00:08:28.710 --> 00:08:30.570 because I wanna honor her wishes. 00:08:30.570 --> 00:08:31.940 That's not what she wanted. 00:08:31.940 --> 00:08:36.804 But, the compromise The compromise was if you all want to have a memorial 00:08:36.804 --> 00:08:41.124 service that you want to plan, my sister and I will gladly show up and 00:08:41.124 --> 00:08:42.864 participate and be with our family. 00:08:42.864 --> 00:08:46.284 But we're gonna honor my mother's wishes not to have funeral. 00:08:47.154 --> 00:08:49.294 Candace Dellacona: So obviously you're speaking my language, right? 00:08:49.294 --> 00:08:52.149 We're talking about documents and the logistics of 00:08:52.179 --> 00:08:53.889 preparation and you're so right. 00:08:53.889 --> 00:08:58.915 I think that in our culture we are more enthralled with birth 00:08:58.915 --> 00:09:00.595 and joy and things like that. 00:09:00.595 --> 00:09:01.645 Why wouldn't we? 00:09:01.645 --> 00:09:03.955 And death is something that is sad. 00:09:03.955 --> 00:09:06.925 It involves grief and the loss of somebody that you love. 00:09:06.925 --> 00:09:10.165 So it's not surprising that a lot of people don't have the 00:09:10.165 --> 00:09:11.605 proper documents in place. 00:09:11.945 --> 00:09:15.005 And I'm so glad that your experience with your mom's estate was 00:09:15.005 --> 00:09:17.195 relatively seamless to that point. 00:09:17.765 --> 00:09:23.675 And, you bring up too having the complexity of a family where you have 00:09:24.065 --> 00:09:31.175 your mother who has remarried and wanting to be very conscious of the 00:09:31.175 --> 00:09:37.265 feelings of your mother's husband while still wanting to own, the 00:09:37.265 --> 00:09:41.785 motherhood piece and the daughterhood piece that you felt and a complexity 00:09:41.785 --> 00:09:43.585 with grandparents and all of that. 00:09:43.635 --> 00:09:47.355 And that's definitely something that a lot of clients struggle with. 00:09:47.355 --> 00:09:55.920 So when it comes to the actual items that do not have an intrinsic economic 00:09:55.920 --> 00:10:01.380 value, that it is something else and it maybe isn't mentioned in the will. 00:10:01.380 --> 00:10:06.870 How do you talk to families about those items that would maybe preserve 00:10:07.440 --> 00:10:13.260 a cultural aspect of one's family or perhaps has served as a building 00:10:13.260 --> 00:10:17.190 of their legacy, or maybe it's valued in a way that it should be? 00:10:17.190 --> 00:10:19.440 Can you talk a little bit about those items? 00:10:20.250 --> 00:10:23.790 Genice Lee: Yeah, I would say that one of the things that I often 00:10:23.790 --> 00:10:28.830 get to tell people is just because it's old, does it make it valuable. 00:10:29.580 --> 00:10:33.390 That really the job of the appraiser is to report what 00:10:33.390 --> 00:10:35.580 the market says about the item. 00:10:35.580 --> 00:10:40.764 So when we're talking about, sentimental value versus monetary 00:10:40.764 --> 00:10:46.084 value what's important is that, back to what I said in the beginning, 00:10:46.354 --> 00:10:48.334 a lot of times it's the story. 00:10:48.604 --> 00:10:54.394 And so what I really encourage clients to do when they're looking at the personal 00:10:54.394 --> 00:10:58.924 property, or what I like to call passion assets is there's a reason that you 00:10:58.924 --> 00:11:03.664 collected these things, and a lot of times if you're able to convey to whomever 00:11:03.664 --> 00:11:09.789 you want to receive them, why it was so important for you to obtain that object 00:11:09.789 --> 00:11:14.139 or what was the story behind it when you purchased it or how you acquired it. 00:11:14.499 --> 00:11:17.679 In telling that story, you're able to convey its importance 00:11:17.829 --> 00:11:19.809 in the legacy of your family. 00:11:20.544 --> 00:11:25.254 So that becomes the most important thing to put a note on it. 00:11:25.274 --> 00:11:29.284 When people have children that don't want things, I say can you put a 00:11:29.284 --> 00:11:33.574 note on the object so that maybe a grandchild can have it in the future? 00:11:33.754 --> 00:11:36.714 And if there aren't any grandchildren or any children, what about a niece 00:11:36.714 --> 00:11:41.454 or a nephew to convey why this object is so important in your family? 00:11:41.694 --> 00:11:46.369 And then another option is if you don't convey it that way, maybe you 00:11:46.369 --> 00:11:53.359 can convey it to a historic house or museum and people who can value the 00:11:53.359 --> 00:11:58.239 object for the story that it tells, or the insight it brings, now you're 00:11:58.239 --> 00:12:00.069 presenting it to a broader audience. 00:12:00.069 --> 00:12:04.704 So there are a lot of ways to preserve the legacy, of the object for the person. 00:12:05.719 --> 00:12:07.009 Candace Dellacona: Yeah, I think you're right. 00:12:07.009 --> 00:12:11.524 As an attorney who has guided hundreds, maybe thousands at this 00:12:11.524 --> 00:12:15.954 point, of clients through an estate administration, if you will, what you 00:12:15.954 --> 00:12:19.964 did for your mom, where you inventory the bank accounts and you have the life 00:12:19.964 --> 00:12:22.604 insurance and you have the real estate. 00:12:22.634 --> 00:12:29.354 These are tangible items that have an economic value. 00:12:29.924 --> 00:12:36.839 So in many ways, it's easier to marshal those assets and divide them 00:12:36.899 --> 00:12:39.089 according to what it says in the will. 00:12:39.619 --> 00:12:43.819 So passion objects, which I love, is that what you called it? 00:12:43.869 --> 00:12:45.219 Genice Lee: Passion assets. 00:12:45.739 --> 00:12:46.489 Candace Dellacona: Passion assets. 00:12:46.489 --> 00:12:47.539 I love that. 00:12:47.559 --> 00:12:54.459 And articulating in your own estate plan what those passion assets are. 00:12:55.689 --> 00:13:01.589 Why they have value, whether, historical, cultural, legacy for your 00:13:01.589 --> 00:13:05.339 own family seems incredibly important. 00:13:05.579 --> 00:13:09.539 Do you know why families overlook that if it seems to 00:13:09.539 --> 00:13:11.519 have such value to their family? 00:13:11.519 --> 00:13:15.139 What is it about things like that we don't as a culture 00:13:15.139 --> 00:13:16.639 address as often as we should? 00:13:18.404 --> 00:13:19.784 Genice Lee: I think it's familiarity. 00:13:20.334 --> 00:13:21.484 You've grown up with it. 00:13:21.524 --> 00:13:25.674 It's, oh, that glass candy dish, though, it may have brought you 00:13:25.674 --> 00:13:30.074 joy as a child because grandma kept peppermints or wrapped candy. 00:13:30.074 --> 00:13:34.174 And when you came over you accessed it, you touched it, you handled it. 00:13:34.444 --> 00:13:40.014 To think that carnival glass has value and you're thinking, oh, I grew up with it. 00:13:40.054 --> 00:13:42.034 I always got to handle it, touch it. 00:13:42.364 --> 00:13:47.454 So it didn't seem anything off limits or unaccessible to you. 00:13:47.454 --> 00:13:53.014 And so we sometimes devalue those things that we can just casually handle versus 00:13:53.764 --> 00:13:57.424 maybe the piece of artwork that's hanging up on the wall that's out of reach. 00:13:57.784 --> 00:14:03.724 And so I am a firm believer of enjoying the objects that I have. 00:14:03.724 --> 00:14:10.094 And so not that maybe the chairs in my house are from the late 18 hundreds, 00:14:10.244 --> 00:14:14.924 but they may be a reproduction Victorian side chair that I like 00:14:14.924 --> 00:14:16.334 to sit down in and read a book. 00:14:16.334 --> 00:14:19.394 And someone comes in to my house and they see it and I 00:14:19.394 --> 00:14:20.684 said, oh, yeah, I have a seat. 00:14:20.684 --> 00:14:24.959 And they're thinking, oh that's an antique or my husband's record 00:14:24.959 --> 00:14:27.089 collection that we play a lot. 00:14:27.479 --> 00:14:29.009 We enjoy listening to it. 00:14:29.289 --> 00:14:32.289 There are some collectors that don't play the records and they're sealed 00:14:32.289 --> 00:14:36.189 as if they were purchased brand new, but I've been one that's liked to 00:14:36.189 --> 00:14:40.749 handle the objects that I own so that I can enjoy them and I like for 00:14:40.749 --> 00:14:42.654 other people to enjoy them as well. 00:14:43.644 --> 00:14:44.874 Candace Dellacona: That makes so much sense to me. 00:14:44.874 --> 00:14:50.184 Where you're looking to the, I guess the right term is the reverence with 00:14:50.214 --> 00:14:54.624 which somebody treats an object, and that doesn't necessarily mean that 00:14:55.324 --> 00:15:00.214 because it's not hanging on the wall that it doesn't have value to a family. 00:15:00.214 --> 00:15:05.644 When you talk about those items like a candy dish or something that maybe all 00:15:05.644 --> 00:15:10.384 of the grandchildren have had access to over the course of their childhood and 00:15:10.384 --> 00:15:17.914 it's symbolic to what grandma was to them, how you help families negotiate 00:15:18.274 --> 00:15:23.734 the tricky situation when there's one object and a number of people have the 00:15:23.734 --> 00:15:26.074 emotional attachment to that object? 00:15:26.869 --> 00:15:28.149 Genice Lee: Boy, that can be tricky. 00:15:28.169 --> 00:15:30.179 If you want it, you want it, you want it. 00:15:30.279 --> 00:15:35.359 I've seen families do things such as to draw, right? 00:15:35.359 --> 00:15:40.009 So person number one gets this pick and then in the next round they pick last. 00:15:40.069 --> 00:15:47.069 The value in doing an inventory of the items and understanding the values is it 00:15:47.069 --> 00:15:51.969 helps with that process so that if someone wants a painting hanging on the wall 00:15:51.989 --> 00:16:00.644 that's $10,000 and someone else wants five records that are lower in value, they have 00:16:00.694 --> 00:16:05.404 the option to pick a number of objects to equal the value of that painting. 00:16:05.824 --> 00:16:08.764 And so it does help in equitable distribution. 00:16:09.334 --> 00:16:15.064 It may not soothe the savage beast of two or three people wanting the same object, 00:16:15.484 --> 00:16:19.024 but then there are also been caveats thrown in there that if they cannot come 00:16:19.024 --> 00:16:23.494 to an agreement that the piece has to be sold and the money distributed equally. 00:16:23.869 --> 00:16:29.259 So sometimes it behooves the children or the benefactors to, muscle up 00:16:29.259 --> 00:16:33.849 and behave correctly so that piece doesn't have to get sold off. 00:16:34.659 --> 00:16:35.019 Candace Dellacona: Yeah. 00:16:35.019 --> 00:16:38.699 That is definitely an issue that comes up in my practice where 00:16:39.509 --> 00:16:45.509 sometimes those items that don't have a lot of economic value are not 00:16:45.629 --> 00:16:48.029 the objects that people fight over. 00:16:48.029 --> 00:16:54.919 That it's the, small, sentimental items that would otherwise, not really render 00:16:54.919 --> 00:16:59.869 much on the open market, really caused the greatest amount of strife because of 00:16:59.869 --> 00:17:04.789 the connection to the object, the cultural connection, the legacy connection. 00:17:05.414 --> 00:17:09.964 What would you say in your travels, one of the things that you and I spoke about 00:17:09.964 --> 00:17:16.104 and I think is really important as a Black American and helping other Black 00:17:16.104 --> 00:17:26.154 American families identify and categorize and honor those artifacts in particular. 00:17:26.154 --> 00:17:28.854 I know that you have a lot of knowledge in this area. 00:17:28.854 --> 00:17:30.259 Can you share a little bit about that? 00:17:32.284 --> 00:17:37.024 Genice Lee: I would say one of the more overlooked objects that 00:17:37.144 --> 00:17:39.904 tossed away is actually paperwork. 00:17:40.514 --> 00:17:47.629 I have had the privilege to appraise and help place archives with a number 00:17:47.629 --> 00:17:52.969 of institutions that are from African Americans that have been collected 00:17:52.969 --> 00:17:57.029 and passed down to what I call the keeper of the grail or the keeper 00:17:57.029 --> 00:18:02.039 of the object, that this is the one person in the family that the collector 00:18:02.039 --> 00:18:06.644 knew would take care of that item and maybe even gave some direction 00:18:06.644 --> 00:18:10.574 in storing it, keeping it, making sure that it didn't get thrown away. 00:18:10.574 --> 00:18:15.144 But if that's the one thing that I would share with families, all 00:18:15.144 --> 00:18:20.934 families, is that one of the things that is going on in the marketplace is 00:18:21.064 --> 00:18:23.314 uncovering of stories that are untold. 00:18:23.374 --> 00:18:25.864 Again, we're back to that theme of telling the story. 00:18:26.944 --> 00:18:31.999 Some of those stories we know at the national level like a Dr. 00:18:31.999 --> 00:18:32.449 King, 00:18:32.774 --> 00:18:33.124 Candace Dellacona: Right. 00:18:33.449 --> 00:18:37.549 Genice Lee: But at the community level and the local level, there are a lot of 00:18:37.549 --> 00:18:43.219 stories and a lot of various communities that are untold, that have impacted 00:18:43.219 --> 00:18:47.929 the history of this country that are being thrown away as people pass away 00:18:47.929 --> 00:18:52.594 because the family doesn't know that they should look through that paperwork 00:18:52.594 --> 00:18:57.094 to see if it connects them in some way to a national movement or a local 00:18:57.094 --> 00:19:01.744 movement that impacted the history nationally, and it gets thrown away. 00:19:01.744 --> 00:19:05.224 And so one of the things that I find that I'm constantly trying to 00:19:05.224 --> 00:19:09.234 communicate to families is there an untold story here in paperwork? 00:19:09.534 --> 00:19:13.744 Was someone the first to pioneer something, the first to do something? 00:19:13.744 --> 00:19:17.494 There was a family that I worked with in Washington, DC where the 00:19:17.494 --> 00:19:21.694 husband was a first to attend the dental school in Georgetown. 00:19:22.414 --> 00:19:26.824 And his wife was more focused on settling the estate and have the paperwork. 00:19:26.824 --> 00:19:30.104 And so I really encouraged her, do you all have these documents? 00:19:30.104 --> 00:19:34.334 And they still had a lot of his documents and I said, you really should as a family, 00:19:34.334 --> 00:19:37.344 rally around, saving those documents. 00:19:37.634 --> 00:19:42.814 Maybe finding a place, an institution a historic house, a organization 00:19:42.814 --> 00:19:44.194 that might be interested in them. 00:19:44.194 --> 00:19:49.114 There are a number of ways that these documents A need to be stored. 00:19:49.114 --> 00:19:54.334 And I talk with clients about not too much heat, not too much moisture, so the 00:19:54.334 --> 00:19:59.714 proper storage containers where they need to be stored, how they need to be stored. 00:20:00.419 --> 00:20:06.859 Then I also talk with them about there are a number of ways to decide if you 00:20:06.859 --> 00:20:08.659 wanna donate it to an institution. 00:20:08.839 --> 00:20:12.259 There are determining factors as to why you pick an institution. 00:20:12.259 --> 00:20:15.589 You wanna give thought to that, will they digitize it for you so 00:20:15.589 --> 00:20:17.869 that public has more access to it. 00:20:18.289 --> 00:20:23.679 And then also a lot of times, organizations such as folks who 00:20:23.679 --> 00:20:27.859 are producing for organizations like Netflix are doing research 00:20:27.889 --> 00:20:31.579 and uncovering these untold stories and turning them into movies. 00:20:31.909 --> 00:20:36.109 And so there is a desire to obtain this new, what we 00:20:36.199 --> 00:20:38.419 consider to be new information. 00:20:38.419 --> 00:20:40.339 Only because we are not aware of it. 00:20:40.339 --> 00:20:43.484 Though the family or a particular community may be 00:20:43.519 --> 00:20:45.079 very well aware of that history. 00:20:45.794 --> 00:20:48.284 Candace Dellacona: It brings up the image of the candy dish, right? 00:20:48.284 --> 00:20:51.929 That it's familiar to everybody in the family that there's not a 00:20:51.929 --> 00:20:55.589 recognition that it could have some significance beyond the family. 00:20:56.169 --> 00:21:00.589 And so bringing up something like paperwork and, perhaps a diploma 00:21:00.919 --> 00:21:06.159 representing somebody's accomplishment and finding out where that lies in 00:21:06.159 --> 00:21:07.779 history and why that's important. 00:21:07.779 --> 00:21:13.104 So aside from those particular items, what other paperwork if 00:21:13.134 --> 00:21:15.114 that's very largely overlooked. 00:21:15.174 --> 00:21:20.904 What other paperwork work is helpful in providing the family 00:21:20.904 --> 00:21:22.854 with some historical context? 00:21:22.854 --> 00:21:25.329 Do you have any suggestions on what they should look out for? 00:21:27.654 --> 00:21:27.734 Genice Lee: Hmm. 00:21:28.029 --> 00:21:28.629 Wow. 00:21:28.819 --> 00:21:30.019 Paperwork. 00:21:30.319 --> 00:21:36.249 Again, as folks are passing away if you're able to really 00:21:36.249 --> 00:21:38.169 pay attention to those stories. 00:21:38.169 --> 00:21:42.879 I can remember visiting my great-grandmother in Arkansas 00:21:42.939 --> 00:21:48.059 and she was just one of the funniest people to me at that age. 00:21:48.059 --> 00:21:53.459 This lively 83-year-old woman, and I was like 14 at the time. 00:21:53.459 --> 00:21:57.569 I just thought that she had a lot of spunk, a lot of energy. 00:21:58.394 --> 00:22:01.404 But just to listen to the stories that she had to share. 00:22:01.404 --> 00:22:08.694 And for those of you that have people that are older, to document it, to grab 00:22:08.694 --> 00:22:14.294 a tape recorder, get them on camera, get their story down, get it transcribed. 00:22:14.544 --> 00:22:15.834 Save those photographs. 00:22:15.834 --> 00:22:21.044 I know one thing that happens often the African American community 00:22:21.044 --> 00:22:26.159 is that the image and knowing who the person was in the picture gets 00:22:26.159 --> 00:22:28.549 separated as that object moves around. 00:22:29.019 --> 00:22:34.934 And so unlike a painting that has a signature and a date, sometimes, not 00:22:34.934 --> 00:22:37.124 all of them do, but a lot of them do. 00:22:37.725 --> 00:22:42.675 It later helps us to identify and move it along and track the provenance, 00:22:42.915 --> 00:22:46.845 meaning the ownership of how it went from one person to the next person. 00:22:47.235 --> 00:22:50.415 A lot of times that gets lost in photographs, and so you just have this 00:22:50.415 --> 00:22:53.105 photo album with all these pictures and you're like, who are these 00:22:53.105 --> 00:22:54.555 people and what are their stories? 00:22:54.555 --> 00:22:58.185 And so I know back in the day, people would write on the back of a picture. 00:22:58.995 --> 00:23:04.375 Now we have all of these fancy ways to scrapbook and preserve images in a good 00:23:04.375 --> 00:23:09.655 way to make those notations so that that information moves along with the object. 00:23:09.865 --> 00:23:13.405 And I think that that's the name of the game in all of these passion 00:23:13.405 --> 00:23:19.185 assets is to identify the object and try to make sure that pertinent 00:23:19.185 --> 00:23:21.780 information moves along with the object. 00:23:21.780 --> 00:23:24.600 And the best way to do that is an inventory. 00:23:24.600 --> 00:23:28.620 I mean, if there is one thing that I would encourage, or another thing that I 00:23:28.620 --> 00:23:32.190 would encourage families is the inventory. 00:23:32.787 --> 00:23:34.707 It can be used in so many ways. 00:23:35.097 --> 00:23:39.357 It can be time consuming, but once you do it one time, you can use that 00:23:39.357 --> 00:23:43.147 inventory, for example, to enter items into an Excel spreadsheet. 00:23:43.447 --> 00:23:45.637 You have the location where it is in the house. 00:23:46.232 --> 00:23:51.152 You have a condition, you can get the values on the object. 00:23:51.152 --> 00:23:57.422 You can add columns to say, this item is to go to this person or this institution, 00:23:57.422 --> 00:24:02.122 or this is what I wish to have happen to it, were something to happen to me. 00:24:02.462 --> 00:24:07.352 You can add things, take away things, and it's just a great way to track 00:24:07.382 --> 00:24:12.902 across multiple situations from insurance claims to moving to estate planning. 00:24:13.232 --> 00:24:17.912 I think the inventory is an invaluable tool for families. 00:24:18.722 --> 00:24:23.312 It takes time, but it's one of those, once you have it done, you can just 00:24:23.312 --> 00:24:25.952 modify on it and use it in multiple ways. 00:24:26.517 --> 00:24:27.122 Candace Dellacona: I think you're right. 00:24:27.122 --> 00:24:33.662 I think having documentation not only provides those who are left behind a 00:24:33.662 --> 00:24:38.592 guide in terms of what they're looking for and why it perhaps should be 00:24:38.592 --> 00:24:44.837 preserved and should be sought after and sought out among all the things in 00:24:44.867 --> 00:24:46.727 a person's house or their apartment. 00:24:47.117 --> 00:24:48.617 I also think, going back to family conflict. 00:24:50.242 --> 00:24:55.102 It is definitely a way if you can assign a person whom you think would 00:24:55.162 --> 00:25:00.527 appreciate the object it definitely provides extra guidance to someone 00:25:00.527 --> 00:25:04.397 who's administering an estate in terms of what the person's wishes are. 00:25:04.617 --> 00:25:09.687 Certain states like New York don't allow inventories to direct where assets go. 00:25:09.687 --> 00:25:11.427 It's gotta be in the actual will. 00:25:11.619 --> 00:25:15.189 But trusts actually do allow things like inventories. 00:25:15.459 --> 00:25:19.149 So it's really important to talk to the local attorney where you live, 00:25:19.149 --> 00:25:23.349 to find out if this is allowed, but it will serve as clear and convincing 00:25:23.349 --> 00:25:27.529 evidence as to what you would've wanted if there is some kind of conflict. 00:25:27.529 --> 00:25:28.549 So I love that. 00:25:28.579 --> 00:25:30.899 Really practical advice, Genice. 00:25:31.339 --> 00:25:35.689 In terms of your role as a sandwich generation member, we're talking 00:25:35.959 --> 00:25:40.579 often here about surviving the sandwich generation, and not 00:25:40.579 --> 00:25:42.629 only surviving, but thriving. 00:25:43.319 --> 00:25:47.739 As you move through your career, I think we're contemporaries here. 00:25:47.739 --> 00:25:51.614 And we're trying to launch our humans that we have at home and 00:25:51.614 --> 00:25:54.974 simultaneously advocate for our elders. 00:25:55.214 --> 00:26:00.944 Has your perspective changed as someone who provides value and guides 00:26:00.944 --> 00:26:05.404 families through legacy as you find yourself in the sandwich generation? 00:26:07.349 --> 00:26:12.529 Genice Lee: I think understanding perhaps the generation behind me, 00:26:12.589 --> 00:26:14.809 which would be my 19-year-old, 00:26:15.829 --> 00:26:16.119 Candace Dellacona: Yeah. 00:26:16.759 --> 00:26:20.779 Genice Lee: trying to understand how she sees the world. 00:26:20.779 --> 00:26:25.039 I grew up, I came up with none of the technology. 00:26:25.309 --> 00:26:30.469 She's been raised with a lot of the technology and a lot more 00:26:30.469 --> 00:26:35.119 access to different opinions that come from around the world. 00:26:35.469 --> 00:26:40.149 So when we talk about, for example, the books behind us, 00:26:40.149 --> 00:26:42.309 those, that's my research library. 00:26:42.309 --> 00:26:47.049 And so I find she loves to read, which is great, and she will often 00:26:47.049 --> 00:26:51.539 resource the books of my library for projects at school because she herself 00:26:51.539 --> 00:26:56.769 is quite artistic in and of herself from drawing to character creation. 00:26:56.769 --> 00:27:03.454 And so she will research the books because she loves the styles from the 1930s. 00:27:03.454 --> 00:27:06.354 And so she'll come and take the books off my shelf and look at the 00:27:06.354 --> 00:27:08.394 objects, the furniture, the clothes. 00:27:08.664 --> 00:27:15.814 And so it's quite amusing for me to hear vintage being the 1980s. 00:27:15.814 --> 00:27:19.954 I'm like, vintage is the 1980s? 00:27:20.004 --> 00:27:20.964 That is hilarious. 00:27:20.964 --> 00:27:27.129 But when my mother was alive, to watch her interact with my mom. 00:27:27.579 --> 00:27:34.429 And when sometimes there were complaints about, oh, school or whatever, we 00:27:34.429 --> 00:27:35.899 all have complaints growing up. 00:27:37.799 --> 00:27:41.409 To encourage her to talk to my mom about did your grandmother love school? 00:27:42.279 --> 00:27:43.539 What was the difference for her? 00:27:43.779 --> 00:27:50.319 And again, to tap those stories, to bridge the gap between that generation so that 00:27:50.724 --> 00:27:56.544 she could understand what my mom valued and why education was so important to her 00:27:56.544 --> 00:28:02.334 and how different her life was for her versus what my daughter has access to. 00:28:02.334 --> 00:28:07.204 And then even myself, what I value in the space that I am in and 00:28:07.204 --> 00:28:12.994 why I love appraising, why I love the work, why I love legacy, why 00:28:13.324 --> 00:28:18.244 it's so important to share those stories between all the generations. 00:28:18.244 --> 00:28:23.329 And even though my daughter doesn't want any of these books behind me, I 00:28:23.329 --> 00:28:29.419 have definitely stressed the importance of the value of the books, just as I 00:28:29.419 --> 00:28:33.589 have clients that reach out to me that want to emphasize to their children 00:28:34.009 --> 00:28:36.139 the value of their art collections. 00:28:36.204 --> 00:28:36.494 Candace Dellacona: Sure. 00:28:36.739 --> 00:28:42.349 Genice Lee: For example, so that daughter doesn't give away a, a Mayhew 00:28:42.529 --> 00:28:48.184 piece that could be 10 to $15,000 because they don't have an inventory 00:28:48.184 --> 00:28:50.674 or any instruction about the piece. 00:28:51.514 --> 00:28:54.964 Someone comes in and says, oh, you know, I always admired that p piece 00:28:54.964 --> 00:28:59.254 of artwork that hung in your dining room, in your family of can I have it? 00:28:59.254 --> 00:29:00.274 And they go, sure. 00:29:00.274 --> 00:29:00.724 Yeah. 00:29:01.054 --> 00:29:02.464 Because they don't know the value. 00:29:02.464 --> 00:29:08.364 And so I think that's really where we pass along in this sandwich generation 00:29:08.634 --> 00:29:11.424 conveying values that are important to us. 00:29:11.854 --> 00:29:15.744 And me being in the middle at one point before my mother passed 00:29:15.744 --> 00:29:19.944 away sharing my values with my daughter and my mother, sharing 00:29:19.944 --> 00:29:22.164 her values with me and my daughter. 00:29:22.164 --> 00:29:28.254 And so just to convey the legacy of values or why we value an object 00:29:28.254 --> 00:29:30.024 has been important in my family. 00:29:30.294 --> 00:29:32.544 Candace Dellacona: I love that and also, the connection with 00:29:32.544 --> 00:29:36.024 your daughter as it relates to the younger generation in technology. 00:29:36.029 --> 00:29:39.449 I think for all of our kids, my kids, your daughter. 00:29:39.839 --> 00:29:43.739 I think it will be easier for them to preserve the legacy because there 00:29:43.739 --> 00:29:47.999 are so many technological advances that make it so convenient to do that. 00:29:48.309 --> 00:29:52.344 If you think about our grandparents trying to find a way to record a 00:29:52.344 --> 00:29:55.884 voice or a story, it probably would've been a lot more difficult to do. 00:29:55.884 --> 00:30:00.354 But we all have phones in our pockets that have that capacity to capture 00:30:00.354 --> 00:30:04.904 voices and images and one of my favorite tools I'll tell you is just a 00:30:04.904 --> 00:30:09.574 shout out to Google, but Google Photos does an identification for faces. 00:30:09.624 --> 00:30:14.184 If you can identify somebody in one picture and you were talking about, 00:30:14.184 --> 00:30:18.294 the lost art of writing on the back of a photograph and being able to scan 00:30:18.294 --> 00:30:21.474 in additional images, and maybe you'll find that person in other images as 00:30:21.474 --> 00:30:26.484 well, and using that technology to help you preserve that culture and 00:30:26.514 --> 00:30:28.824 the legacy and continue the story. 00:30:28.824 --> 00:30:34.474 So I love that bringing in the next generation to complete our story. 00:30:35.284 --> 00:30:39.834 Genice Lee: I'd love to piggyback on your comment about Google Photos and 00:30:39.834 --> 00:30:44.114 as an appraiser, one of the main things that we do is we have to identify the 00:30:44.114 --> 00:30:50.064 object, and so I definitely do not discourage people from using that feature 00:30:50.084 --> 00:30:54.464 in Google to grab the image of an object so that they can understand what it is. 00:30:54.704 --> 00:30:56.774 A lot of times the question is what is this? 00:30:56.774 --> 00:31:02.601 And oftentimes, not all the time, but oftentimes it will give you the first step 00:31:02.601 --> 00:31:05.721 into understanding, oh, the item is this. 00:31:06.141 --> 00:31:10.001 Now, where I caution people is I say you don't necessarily wanna 00:31:10.001 --> 00:31:11.981 let Google be your appraiser, 00:31:12.201 --> 00:31:12.361 Candace Dellacona: Fair. 00:31:12.371 --> 00:31:15.641 Genice Lee: It will be with the first step of identifying the object. 00:31:15.641 --> 00:31:20.321 It may not convey the appropriate markets, depending on what's going 00:31:20.321 --> 00:31:24.191 on with the piece, but it will help you to identify what it is and then 00:31:24.191 --> 00:31:26.741 allow you to move forward from there. 00:31:26.741 --> 00:31:31.161 So I also do tell people, no, I don't have a problem with people, grabbing 00:31:31.161 --> 00:31:32.931 an image or using that technology. 00:31:32.931 --> 00:31:33.591 It's smart. 00:31:33.641 --> 00:31:37.541 It definitely lets them know, do I wanna pursue this any further 00:31:37.541 --> 00:31:39.011 or has my question been answered? 00:31:39.926 --> 00:31:40.586 Candace Dellacona: I love that. 00:31:40.586 --> 00:31:44.676 And I think what it comes down to is you have to go to the expert and that's 00:31:44.676 --> 00:31:46.576 really where you come in, Genice. 00:31:46.596 --> 00:31:51.996 Where you really can come in and help families at a time, often when they're 00:31:51.996 --> 00:31:58.006 grieving and helping them sort through the noise to figure out, what is worth 00:31:58.066 --> 00:32:04.176 the effort of a family to preserve and what perhaps is better worth donating to 00:32:04.176 --> 00:32:06.716 someone who perhaps could use the object. 00:32:06.716 --> 00:32:13.346 I know as an estate attorney, people like you are an invaluable resource to cut down 00:32:13.346 --> 00:32:18.776 on the time and sometimes you know the sadness as it relates to certain objects 00:32:19.026 --> 00:32:23.706 because it can provide insight as you say to something that you may not have known 00:32:23.706 --> 00:32:25.536 about that person when they were here. 00:32:25.536 --> 00:32:30.931 So I love that you're so passionate about legacy building 00:32:30.961 --> 00:32:33.811 and the preservation of culture. 00:32:33.811 --> 00:32:38.581 And I just wanna remind everyone that although you are based in Texas, every 00:32:38.581 --> 00:32:40.321 time we talk, you are somewhere else. 00:32:40.321 --> 00:32:43.651 So I know you travel and you're an incredible resource 00:32:43.651 --> 00:32:45.901 to people across the country. 00:32:46.221 --> 00:32:49.581 And services like yours are really invaluable. 00:32:50.121 --> 00:32:54.711 So I just wanna say thank you so much for spending some time with us 00:32:54.921 --> 00:32:57.711 and giving us your amazing insight. 00:32:58.394 --> 00:33:02.469 Genice Lee: Thank you for having me, and I so appreciate that we share this 00:33:02.469 --> 00:33:05.184 heartbeat around legacy and families. 00:33:06.259 --> 00:33:06.739 Candace Dellacona: Me too. 00:33:06.949 --> 00:33:08.009 Thanks again, Genice. 00:33:08.029 --> 00:33:13.249 And for all of those who are interested in learning more, I will have all of 00:33:13.249 --> 00:33:17.774 Genice's contact information in the show notes and thanks for tuning in everyone.