A few years ago I got a email from a gentleman back in Central Pennsylvanos. He was looking for an Austere iron bed. He was quite specific on the style and design he wanted.
He sent me sketches of the bed, that he’d drawn after actually having a dream about it.
We discussed finishes etc. and as I got to know him a little better, he opened up to me about his quest to find the bed of his “dreams”.
It seems he’s in his early 60’s, and had been drafted into the Vietnam War. While in the war, he was captured and held in a POW Camp for over 6 months. He recounted a dream to me of waking up at his grandmothers farm in central Pennsylvania, in an old iron bed. He said it was the only peaceful time he had while interned. He said until he was rescued from the camp, everyday was an emotional roller coaster not knowing if you’d make it through the day. He was rescued and returned home not long after that. Since that time he’d have difficulty sleeping and wasn’t able to sleep throughout the night without waking up in a cold sweat two or three times a night.
After he’d told his wife about the recurring dream he’d had while he’d been captured, she suggested that the dream was his subconscious trying to remind him of a peaceful time in his life to help him get through what he was experiencing. Although he was now home and safe, those memories were still vivid in his mind.
His wife suggested they look for a bed, like the one in his dream and the one he slept in on his grandmothers farm when he was a child.
He told me he’d looked around and seen a number of similar beds like his grannies. But nothing that was exact. He described it at length and then sent me the sketches.
The week before they contacted me I’d gotten in a shipment of antique iron beds from back in the east.
I’ve posted the sketch he’d sent me and the photo of the bed I’d just gotten in. Normally this coincidence wouldn’t be that strange. Many of the beds I get in, I’ve had numerous times over the past 40 years.
This was the first time I’d ever seen this exact bed.
I emailed a photo of it to him along with a couple dozen others. There were some beautiful iron beds in the group. Literally minutes after after emailing him the photo’s, I received a call from him. The bed I’d gotten in was exactly the one he had in his dreams and the one he’d remembered sleeping in at his grandmothers.
We refinished it for him in a simple sandblasted pewter finish and shipped it out to him in record time.
That week I received an email from his wife and him thanking me for the bed and how quickly we’d been able to get it to him.
He also said…….after they set it up, it was the first time since coming home from the war that he’d slept through the night. He also said he hadn’t had any nightmares since the iron bed arrived. He was one happy customer.
To add even more irony to this story……. the bed he got……..came from an old “picker” I buy beds from……… in central Pennsylvania.
