As a hobby, from time to time, I visit estate sales looking for fine linen to resell. While all the other bargain hunters are in deceased women’s closets looking for designer bags and clothes, I’m happily alone in the linen closet, looking at napkins and tablecloths.

Florida is a wonderland for estate sales. The wealthy retire here, and they bring all their stuff with them. They have curio cabinets full of Lladre figurines and Baccarat crystal, closets bursting with designer clothes, and new purses stiff with intention. A long life of consumerism often ends with a line of people parading through a house, paying bargain prices for what was once someone’s life’s treasures. I am never more in touch with the emptiness of “stuff” than when I’m at an estate sale.

And that is why I love linen. It is the oldest and most important fabric on earth, imbued with a simple honesty–meant to be worn, lived in, used in a tablescape or a pair of pants. It is quietly luxurious, not meant to impress behind a door of glass, but rather to inhabit a life and ride along with it.

Last week, I hit the jackpot as an amateur linen buyer. The sale was near my daughter’s town in an upscale, though not luxurious, home in Boynton Beach. I waited an hour to get in, passed by tables crowded with dishes and wine glasses, and went straight to the linen closet.

Behind the door was a true once-in-a-lifetime find: dozens of pieces of table linen, of which a few were very special. I grabbed two bins and loaded them up, offering $200 for what was probably worth at least least triple that in linen. Setting beautiful tables had obviously been a pursuit of Karin–the name I gave my now-deceased benefactor. She was a napkin lady–a woman with a good eye and a passion for setting tables

The truth about what you’ve brought home from somebody’s linen closet comes to light in a room with a good window. That’s when you can assess how much work you have in front of you. Old linens need to be soaked in Retro Clean for 24 hours–even longer. Tough stains need to be addressed over several days, because real stains only improve in stages.

In those first hours, going through the boxes of linen, I began to get to know Karin. You can tell a lot about people from their stains–wine or coffee? Butter or olive oil? Candle wax, chocolate, Coke? Karin and her friends were coffee drinkers–there were old coffee stains on all of the tablecloths, but suspiciously no red wine stains. What had made them spill all that coffee?

And Karin didn’t launder her linens when her guests left. She’d just fold them and throw them back in her closet, leaving me to labor over them years–even decades–later.

In the back of her linen closet, I found a cellophane wrapper, maybe 10 x 5 inches, and inside were four napkins made of Brussels linen, perhaps the prettiest I have ever seen.

The sticker on the cellophane wrapper gave an address–a little store on a quaint Brussels street–38, rue aux Laines. Karin’s mother must have been strolling along the city streets on a grand tour sometime around 1912, on the lookout for a linen store. Brussels lace would have been a prized treasure to bring home. She must have stumbled upon the L. Foiret Dentelles shop, along what is still a lovely little street in the city.

Brussels has been a major center of lace-making since at least the 15th century, particularly known for its delicate bobbin lace called Brussels lace. The craft was historically made with the finest linen threads, prized across Europe for their quality and intricacy. Her mother must have passed this lovely cellophane package to Karin, proving a family passion for fine linen.

Sadly, these beautiful napkins were wrapped in tissue paper and through the century the chemicals from the tape leached, leaving old marks that would be impossible for me to remove completely.

I held the package in my hands and wondered at the story, and marveled at the history. The napkins’ value is greatly diminished by the marks, but I can still appreciate the beauty of the fabric.

Of all the messes I’m cleaning up for Karin, this one has inspired me.

The little shop on rue aux Laines has long been closed. And Karin is gone now, too. She died alone in Florida–a long way from Brussels. She had no one to leave the napkins to, and so their napkin story almost ended–until I came along.

I hope I can keep the story going. I hope I can help restore these little pieces of a family’s life, all the while knowing beauty can exist with flaws.