The houses in my family have always been filled with the sounds of time.

As a child, when we'd visit my grandparents' house we'd invariably arrive to a quiet cacophony of clicks and clunks. The grandfather clock hanging on the wall behind the TV and the German cuckoo clock in the shape of a Bavarian chalet – bird and all – overpowered the other noises of the cooking in the kitchen next door or even the television if it wasn't turned up loud enough. But if you focused, you could pick out the much more frenetic and high-pitched beat of pocket watches among the mix.

John H. Wilterding Jr. made his life's work as a pharmacist in the small town of Algoma, Wisconsin. But one look throughout his house – his small library of WWII and railroad books in the family room near the cuckoo clock and his massive library of maritime research, watch, and clock books housed on rows of bookshelves in the basement – and anyone could tell that deep down his passion was elsewhere. Everywhere, in fact.

It was only years after he passed away when I was 23, that it hit me that my grandfather was a systematist more than anything, a consummate collector not (just) of objects, but of knowledge and the context of an object – of what came before and what would develop after. He was a published author on Great Lakes maritime history and Midwestern railroads, and wrote articles for the bulletin of the National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors. His curiosity for these subjects knew no bounds.

Here's a bit of family lore. My grandfather was watching me. As was his habit, he would pull out an old American pocket watch and, holding me in his arms, let me listen to the ticking of the movement. He would open the back to show me the movement as I sat captivated by the balance swinging back and forth. Then, the tale goes, I said my first words (aside from "mom" or "dad"):

Apparently, those first words were followed shortly after by "clock." It's no surprise. On most trips to Algoma, we'd arrive to pocket watches strewn across the house. If my grandfather had one or two watches he was studying, they'd often sit at a massive wooden desk in the family room, under which I'd hide and build secret forts until I was far too big to fit anymore. If the research required more space, he'd migrate to the kitchen or dining room tables, laying out watches, the old pill knife from the pharmacy that he used to open casebacks, and price guides put out by the famous collectors and scholars he corresponded with, such as William "Bill" Meggers. It was no wonder he became my "Grandpa Clock."

My grandfather's love of pocket watches started sometime in the early 1960s. No one is quite sure how he got it into his head that he wanted a pocket watch, but he made his wish known to my grandma Treiva, who conspired with her father to buy him one as a gift.

"We went to Rummele's Jewelers and picked out a nice gold pocket watch," my grandma told me. What she bought was a Swiss private label ébauche in gold, with an Incabloc-equipped movement and roulette date window.

"Well, I thought I solved the whole problem," she told me. "Bingo, we're done. I don't remember what kind of reaction he had to this wonderful thing I had done. I don't remember looking at his face to see his reaction. Maybe it's better that I didn't, because it wasn't what he wanted. I thought he wanted a pocket watch the same way I wanted a wristwatch: to use it. But apparently not."

By 1964, he had found exactly what he was looking for, a Hampden Watch Co. model 2 in the "Dueber Watch Co." grade, made 70 years earlier in 1894, but languishing in an antique mall in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. It was a beautiful full-plate lever set movement and a perfect example of American watchmaking, with a heavy box-hinged, rose-toned, gold-filled hunter case and finished with a carving of a stag leaping across a frame on the back. Inside the exterior caseback, the watch even had its original warranty papers from the Dueber Watch Case Manufacturing Company, stating that the 10k gold-filled "Champion" model case was under warranty for 20 years – which had long since passed.

With so much history in such a beautiful package, it was perfect – his first "real" pocket watch.

"It must have cost less than $100 because we didn't have any more than that at the time," my grandma told me. He knew that buying such a frivolous and expensive item would potentially be an issue, so he bought my mother – only two years old at the time – a green velvet dress with smocking and flowers in the material. It was a peace offering of sorts to distract my grandmother from the fact that he spent so much of their little savings on something so unnecessary.

As his love of pocket watches grew, my grandpa did his best to keep it quiet from his wife, likely for the same reasons. By the 1970s, pocket watches were still long-since outdated and collecting them wasn't logical or necessary, so he did it quietly. He focused on American pocket watches from the late 1800s and early 1900s, most of them simple time-only watches. Only a few European fusees entered his collection over the next nearly 50 years as he refined his taste. He searched for watches in mint or near-mint condition, and what he didn't find at antique malls, he sourced from other collectors, often secretly shipping them to his pharmacy before sneaking them back into the house in his briefcase. Eventually, the number of watches became too many to hide and the safe in the house was so overflowing that he had to buy a second one.

In the days before the Internet, information was often scarce, passed from collector to collector, and compiled in scholarly publications. My grandfather was meticulous with any information he gathered, keeping detailed records of how much he paid for each watch in a secret shorthand (in case others would ever go through his collection), the year of manufacture, case manufacturer, the number of that exact movement made, and even their changing value over the years, all on hand-typed note cards (often with strikeouts or corrections).

I was probably around 11 when he first truly trusted me with his precious collection. I remember him bringing me into the dining room with watches on a table as they often were, but this time, he sat me in the middle and set me to work to do the same research I had watched him do for years. I must have proved myself capable. Three years later, my grandpa gifted me my "tick-tock" watch, an open-face Illinois Grade 706 from 1919 with a beautiful double-sunk dial with bold Arabic numerals and red five-minute markers on the outside track. He had given me watches from his collection before – and I received a few after – but this Illinois was special. It was where it all started.

I thought he wanted a pocket watch the same way I wanted a wristwatch: to use it. But apparently not.

As teenagers do, I drifted away from the pocket watches that fascinated me when I was younger and tried to no avail to be "cool." I still cherished my watches and the time with my grandpa, but watches weren't my "thing" anymore.

On November 21, 2013, while I was in graduate school for journalism, my grandfather passed away. It was the final culmination of years of decline, his body failing him in one way or another. In the years prior, when his health was better, he had started to catalog his collection more thoroughly, with notes about which watches he'd recommend keeping for sentimental or family reasons and which watches were maybe worth some money. He had tried to sell his watches when his health was still good – hoping to relieve us of some burden. But eventually, we gathered the family a few months after his passing and stood around the dining room table, deciding what to do with the 175 or so pocket watches that remained.

One by one, each of us selected a few watches to keep. I remember it feeling so fruitless, as though I couldn't begin to imagine what Grandpa would have wanted me to keep. Who was I to look at the hundreds of watches spread over the dining room table that one day and at a glance, try to decide which watches I'd like to keep based solely on the look of the dial or the movement or case? My grandfather had his own reasons for buying them, a story to each. Some were traded, some from friends, and so many were probably watches that took a long time to find. I felt like I had let him down by not knowing enough after all those years.

The rest we sold to a family friend who ran an antique mall. With his experience in clocks and watches, he thought he could make a little money from the collection. Slowly, the sad end of my grandpa's collection started to fade from my thoughts, and I was content to cherish the few watches I had left.

In late 2019, watches crept back into my mind. Looking for something to occupy my spare time, I thought about my grandfather and his watches. Older, and maybe a little wiser, I started to wonder about the questions I never asked him about his collection. As a kid, you're so often fascinated by the "what" and the "how" that you rarely think to ask about the "why." Now "why" was all that mattered.

"Why did he start collecting?"

"Why did he collect the things he did?"

I knew he wrote about watches for the National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors, so I hoped I'd find some clues online with a quick Google search. Instead, I found a thread on the organization's forum. "It's an effort but worth it... John H. Wilterding Jr. Collection."

My jaw dropped as I read the first post from just over a year prior. The poster had come across an antique mall with 175 to 200 pocket watches and immediately started digging through the collection.

"The name did not strike me at first, mainly because someone had tried to conceal the name on the cards and such, but what did was the organization and effort spent on each watch. Each had a card that detailed information about the watch. Not like a dealer, but more like an enthusiastic collector. One that took the time to research every detail and make a note of it," the poster said. I kept reading.

Without Internet access to check his find, the poster had bought five watches based solely on what he could remember about them. He came back later and bought about 12 more. When he returned home, he did more research and read up on my grandfather, his writing for the NAWCC, and his extensive knowledge; he was moved by his passion.

Over the next few months, the man would go on to post about a number of his favorite watches, eventually buying 96 of them in total. But his first post stuck with me. It ended with the following note:

"I am a sentimental type and figure that something that took so much time and effort deserves a bit more respect than being sold off to random tourists in browsing and buying 'some old watch that looked neat.' While they go great with what I have been wanting to do with my own collection, I don't want to just merge them into my collection. I will maintain the cards, boxes, and felt bags each has. I intend to note that they came from John's collection and that there is a history there."

Overwhelmed, I responded on the forum and then contacted him. He and I kept in touch, albeit infrequently. In the interim, he had started selling off watches from my grandfather's collection to cover the purchase cost and justify keeping the rarest pieces. He offered me first dibs on those that remained. It was like finding out that someone you thought was dead was still alive somewhere, and you might see him again.

But instead of answering my "whys" it opened doors to new questions. When I returned home to Wisconsin, I tried to make sense of it all, digging through my grandfather's papers, the watches that remained, the Rubbermaid boxes of knick-knacks, his Navy service medals, and other family treasures. I found business cards he'd hand out at watch gatherings or antique malls that told people to call him if they found any good keywind/keyset pocket watches or "transitionals" – his favorite to collect – but no explanation of why that was his focus. And, as has happened to the pocket watch collecting community, almost all his friends had passed away, leaving no one left to answer my questions or share their knowledge.

With my knowledge of watches stuck in the late 1800s and early 1900s, I became curious about what had happened to the watch industry since then. Another quick Google search led me to a website called Hodinkee, and I was hit with an overwhelming deluge of information.

I read what felt like every story the site had ever published and soaked it in, just like my grandfather had with every bit of information he had studied over the course of his 49 years in watches. Deep into my career as a photojournalist searching for connection and meaning with the people I photographed, I once again searched for stories covering the emotional side of the industry. In hindsight, I was watching the videos of John Mayer and John Goldberger, hoping that the stories about their motivations as collectors might reveal something to me about what had moved my grandfather for all those years. Instead I had found my own kindred spirits in them.

I started to obsess about watches again, but far more modern pieces than what my grandfather collected. Compared to pocket watches, wristwatches were practical. Yet, in contrast to the pocket watches my grandfather was buying for a few hundred to a thousand dollars, they were completely financially unattainable. Learning about everything from Speedmasters to Valjoux 72 watches, Universal chronographs and my favorite Rolex GMT-Master, I absorbed all the information I could to find my own way as a collector.

As the years have passed, I've slowly started to amass my own small pocket watch collection, suited to my own historical tastes and interests. I've also sought out several of my grandfather's watches, aided in part by his detailed records. But it's been three years since I last spoke to that man on the forum about the watches he kept from my grandfather's collection.

There's a little fear there that in my inability to scrape together the few thousand dollars to buy the watches from him back then, I lost my one shot to bring that portion of my grandfather back into my life. I felt like I let him down by not prioritizing his watches.

But I remember talking to my grandmother after Hodinkee published my first story a few years ago. For years my grandfather had immersed (or dragged) her into the watch world. Now I was following in his footsteps, in my own way. "It was wonderful," she told me about that first story. "There was so much emotion and color to the story. It's exactly what I wish your grandpa would have been writing all those years."

It's taken me time to realize, but I've begun to understand that in starting my journey in watches, I should never have put on myself any expectation to be my grandfather or "save" and preserve his legacy. My grandfather loved what he loved, but he also loved to learn about what moved others in their collecting. As collectors, we don't just connect over the similar objects we love, but also the love we share for collecting as a whole. In hindsight, I think he would have much rather seen me collect and study the things that move me. Because with or without his watches, I'll still always have my "Grandpa Clock."