Q: I have a huge piece of wooden furniture we bought in San Mateo, Calif., in the early 1980s. When we got it home, we had to reconstruct the kitchen to make it fit. It’s made up of a long base of cabinets topped by three revolving glass doors and an upper cabinet of regular glass doors. The facing plate on one section says “O.M. Whitman & Co., Boston, Mass., Patented,” and then lists several dates ranging from June 12, 1883, to Feb. 7, 1899. What do all the dates mean and what can you tell me about O.M. Whitman?