A to Z April Challenge: U is for Underappreciated

When my sister and I cleaned out our parents’ home, we had to make many decisions about what to do with all the stuff. Which things are truly “valuable” and which have only sentiment in their favor? Should we sell it, keep it, or throw it away? To help ensure a future for our family’s heirlooms, I plan to leave a booklet for my daughters telling the stories of what they will inherit one day. (Not TOO soon, I hope!) With this challenge I begin my book of Heirlooms.

is for those heirlooms that are “under-appreciated.” Frankly, that could be almost anything in my house! But I will limit myself to the silver.

My grand-aunt Helen Martha Killeen Parker knew she was dying in 1981, so she labeled her possessions with the names of the recipients. My dad’s sister was very close to Aunt Helen, so she received quite a few things. Whether she thought she had inherited too much for one person or simply had no interest in another tea set, my aunt gave the set to me knowing I would appreciate fine silver. 

I always thought the silver service was a wedding gift until I did a little research. The pattern is Shell and Gadroon by Gorham dating from the 1950s, almost 30 years after Helen and Herbert married. I found a set online selling for $789. Unlike the set for sale, mine has a different tray and does not include the waste bowl.

My aunt also gave me Aunt Helen’s silver punch bowl. If you’ve never drunk punch from a silver cup, you are missing out on an extraordinary experience. Silver holds the cold like no other. 

Yeeaah, hardly anyone loves silver anymore. Hardly anyone wants to bother with polishing it. They should be happy with recent decorating trends that celebrate tarnish. While I do not LOVE polishing silver, I do not mind putting in the effort. All that sparkle is reward enough.

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: T is for Table

When my sister and I cleaned out our parents’ home, we had to make many decisions about what to do with all the stuff. Which things are truly “valuable” and which have only sentiment in their favor? Should we sell it, keep it, or throw it away? To help ensure a future for our family’s heirlooms, I plan to leave a booklet for my daughters telling the stories of what they will inherit one day. (Not TOO soon, I hope!) With this challenge I begin my book of Heirlooms.

is for the table built by my husband Barry’s paternal grandfather John Mathias. It was made from scraps of oak left over from the construction of Barry’s childhood home. His dad and grandfather built that too in 1948.

 

John and Essie Mathias
Barry's grandparents

The table was never intended as “fine furniture.” They never lived that way. The table was sanded, stained, and varnished, but still it has a roughness to it. The wood of the table top is not perfect; in fact the back left corner is pocked with dips and holes that suggest the wood may have come from a diseased tree.

As for construction, there are no fancy cuts - all straight. Nails attaching the frame to the legs are clearly visible, no attempt to disguise them with wood putty.

Barry remembers the table always under the double windows in the upstairs hall. That is where his mother grew her African violets and other flowers because the light was so good there.

Now we use it as a side table in the family room. On it sits an old chicken feed scoop from the family farm. It makes a good gathering spot for extra glasses and remote controls.

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: S is for Singer

When my sister and I cleaned out our parents’ home, we had to make many decisions about what to do with all the stuff. Which things are truly “valuable” and which have only sentiment in their favor? Should we sell it, keep it, or throw it away? To help ensure a future for our family’s heirlooms, I plan to leave a booklet for my daughters telling the stories of what they will inherit one day. (Not TOO soon, I hope!) With this challenge I begin my book of Heirlooms.

is for Singer sewing machine which belonged to my great-grandmother. Since Mary Frances Jollett Davis was my mother’s favorite grandmother, she always intended to do something special with it. As it turns out, she never did, and so the sewing machine sat in the garage for years while other things just got piled on top.

Singer that belonged to my great-grandmother
Mary Frances Jollett Davis

Now I have it. For a time, the Singer was just a home to piles of “stuff” in my house too. Like mother, like daughter. However, I finally got around to redoing the room over the garage as my “Gene Cave,” in other words, the room where I have my computer for genealogy research and blogging. The sewing machine serves as a table prominently placed under all the photos of grandparents and great grandparents.

Look closely at how beautiful these old machines were and ARE. The base is like decorative scrollwork in iron.

Notice the intricate patterns in the face plate:

According to a “Machine Dating” chart online, Mary Frances’s machine was built about 1923. It’s called a “Red Head” or “Red Eye” machine because of the beautiful red and gold ornamentation.

Mary Frances must have eased and pushed and shoved a lot of fabric through here over the years to wear away the finish. Most of these models did not have a reverse. I guess hers didn't either. So far, I don’t see any reverse button that I’m familiar with on modern sewing machines.

I wonder what she was making with this last spool of thread.

I hope that one day one of my daughters will be thrilled to own her great-great-grandmother’s Singer treadle sewing machine. And then maybe one day one of my grandbabies will look at that machine and proclaim, “I think it was my great-great-GREAT-grandmother’s sewing machine. I remember seeing that thing in my grandmother’s gene cave under the pictures of all those old people.”

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: R is for Roseville

When my sister and I cleaned out our parents’ home, we had to make many decisions about what to do with all the stuff. Which things are truly “valuable” and which have only sentiment in their favor? Should we sell it, keep it, or throw it away? To help ensure a future for our family’s heirlooms, I plan to leave a booklet for my daughters telling the stories of what they will inherit one day. (Not TOO soon, I hope!) With this challenge I begin my book of Heirlooms.

is for Roseville. I own 4 pieces: 2 large vases or urns and 2 candlesticks, but only the vases are truly “heirlooms.” They once belonged to my grandaunt Violetta Davis Ryan. The candlesticks, however, were a fairly recent Christmas gift from my Aunt Betty who thought they would look nice with the vases.

 

Roseville pottery is highly collectible today. It was produced by the Roseville Pottery company, one of three major producers of American art pottery in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Most of the pottery was made for simple household use as flower pots, candlesticks, vases, wall pockets, baskets, and garden pedestals. The Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts-inspired designs have proved to be almost timeless in their appeal. The revival of Mission-style furniture and Craftsman-style architecture has made prices on Roseville soar.

My urns are in the Dahlrose design which was introduced in 1928. It is marked with a paper label, of which only a black sliver remains.

One of the urns has a badly chipped handle. However, the other is in perfect condition. A seller on Etsy has this very urn for $675. Obviously the chipped one would be worth very little, if anything.

I have turned one around to show both sides -
a full bloom and a bud

The candlesticks are in the Magnolia design introduced in 1943. If it were not for several small chips, my candlesticks would be desirable because of their color; collectors prefer the candlesticks that came in blue or green. My aunt knew they were not pristine, and that is what made them affordable. When I display them just right, though, the chips do not show.

Magnolia is marked with the raised Roseville USA mark and shape number. 

What I enjoy most about Roseville is how it feels - the smoothness of the field, the smooth edges of the raised flowers. It is probably a good thing that most antiques dealers keep Roseville out of reach or behind glass doors.

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: Q is for Quilt

When my sister and I cleaned out our parents’ home, we had to make many decisions about what to do with all the stuff. Which things are truly “valuable” and which have only sentiment in their favor? Should we sell it, keep it, or throw it away? To help ensure a future for our family’s heirlooms, I plan to leave a booklet for my daughters telling the stories of what they will inherit one day. (Not TOO soon, I hope!) With this challenge I begin my book of Heirlooms.

is for Quilt. Well, of course. You weren't expecting anything else, I'm sure. The creativity and artistry among members of my family are evident in the quilts they sewed.

Dresden Plate

My great aunt Velma Davis Woodring made several quilts, which are now mine.  The Dresden Plate pattern was very popular in the 1920s and 1930s. The elaborate center suggests this is a variation on the typical Dresden Plate which had just a simple circle. Judging by all the floral prints in this lovingly worn quilt, this one was probably made in the 1930s.

This quilt is really worn. So many parts of the "plate" are gone.

I like to look at all the prints and imagine they were once dresses Velma and her sister Violetta might have worn as children.

Hexagon - Variation on Grandmother's Flower Garden

The hexagon pattern is thought by quilt historians to be one of the oldest pieced patterns. This hexagon quilt in violet and yellow with coordinating floral print is Velma’s masterpiece, if you ask me. She was the quintessential purple girl long before the color was fashionable. The pattern is very precise forming diamond-shaped groupings. I KNOW this pattern has a name, but I can’t find it. It is probably some variation on Grandmother’s Flower Garden. 

The purple fabric has not held up as well as the floral and yellow.

Greek Square

My mother-in-law Helen Virginia Kohne Mathias made a quilt for each of her 7 children. Upon her death, we each took one. Apparently she made many more because somehow we ended up with 2. This is my favorite. I love the bright green and orange fabric arranged in the Greek Square pattern. She machine stitched the top but knotted instead of quilted. 

Squares and triangles

This gold patchwork of squares and triangles amuses me because the fabric is so unlike Helen. It looks like an animal print in a way, but certainly a smaller scale and more subtle than something obvious like leopard or giraffe. I’m not sure what it is. Like the previous one, the top is machine stitched and the quilt is knotted. 

My mother appliquéd and quilted this sampler quilt around 1977. It was her first one. She set two challenges for herself:  make no 2 squares alike and use only 2 shades of pink. She used a pattern from a magazine but then had to design more center motifs herself. The beauty of this quilt is the balance of the two colors. 

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: P is for Purple Glass

When my sister and I cleaned out our parents’ home, we had to make many decisions about what to do with all the stuff. Which things are truly “valuable” and which have only sentiment in their favor? Should we sell it, keep it, or throw it away? To help ensure a future for our family’s heirlooms, I plan to leave a booklet for my daughters telling the stories of what they will inherit one day. (Not TOO soon, I hope!) With this challenge I begin my book of Heirlooms.

is for purple glass. More specifically, it is Wisteria by Fostoria. It was the fine wedding crystal of my grandaunt Velma Davis Woodring. In the division of “THINGS,” my mother took the crystal for me, and my cousin Bobbie took Velma’s china. It was the sweetest pattern of yellow and purple flowers on ivory colored china. I imagine the china and Wisteria crystal made a beautiful table.

Water goblet and tall sherbet
Juice glass in front 

One of the unique features of the Wisteria crystal is that it appears to change colors. APPEARS to. Fluorescent lighting makes the glass look blue. Collectors know if they see blue glass to take it into natural light to test for that beautiful wisteria purple.

Unfortunately, much of Velma’s crystal was chipped, so Momma and Bobbie threw many pieces away not knowing that some crystal can actually be repaired. Such a pity. So I inherited a few water goblets, a few champagne/sherbet/martini glasses, and a couple juice glasses (or maybe they are shrimp cocktail glasses??).

The pattern is rare but Replacements and eBay occasionally have Wisteria available for purchase. I toyed with the idea of adding to the collection, but it is pricey. Currently Replacements is selling the champagne/sherbet for $22. One dealer on eBay wants $27 while another is offering 3 for $96. Replacements has no water glasses, but there is one - and ONLY ONE - on eBay for $45.

Velma did not limit her love of purple to fine stemware. She also had candlesticks and a bowl which was either an ice dish or a flower bowl used as a centerpiece. One Wisteria double candlestick on eBay is on offer for $92 (plus another $22 in shipping costs).

One more purple glass piece is this one.

 

We have always called it a chocolate pot because of its size and shape, but I am not sure chocolate pots were ever made of glass. It is too tall for a syrup pitcher. I thought it was too small for lemonade until I remembered that there is a picture of it on display with Velma’s wedding gifts.

Look - the pitcher is surrounded by small tumblers which appear to be of the same glass. OK, Lemonade Pitcher, it is.

But wait - Lemonade pitchers didn’t have lids. So I’m back to “I just don’t know.”

I wonder what became of the tumblers.

The Lemonade Set is on the buffet, next to the silver platter.

I have designated Velma’s purple glass to go to my younger daughter who is truly Velma’s rightful heir. Just like Velma, she loves jewelry and she loves purple.

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: O is for Oak Table

When my sister and I cleaned out our parents’ home, we had to make many decisions about what to do with all the stuff. Which things are truly “valuable” and which have only sentiment in their favor? Should we sell it, keep it, or throw it away? To help ensure a future for our family’s heirlooms, I plan to leave a booklet for my daughters telling the stories of what they will inherit one day. (Not TOO soon, I hope!) With this challenge I begin my book of Heirlooms.

is for oak table.

I admit it - I’m finally at the age when my friends and neighbors are using the D word - DOWNSIZING. In this house, downsizing is not even discussed. But sometimes I do look around my house and play the “What If” game. What if we decided to downsize? What if we really had to move out of this house? Which pieces of furniture would we take with us?

Always my answer is my round oak pedestal table.

Oak table in the dining room

In the 1970s when the antiques craze was driving up the prices on desirable large furniture like pedestal tables, my husband had a brilliant idea. He remembered such a table in the basement of his parents’ home. Nobody was using it. Maybe his mother would be glad for us to take it.

But as Murphy’s Law goes, she sold the table to an antiques dealer two weeks before we thought to ask for it. So off to the antiques dealer we went to buy it back. Drat the luck, he had sold it already, and it was across the street being refinished.

Everyone felt bad, not just us. The pangs of guilt sent the dealer and his refinisher on a mission to find us a round oak table.

And they did! The pedestal had been painted black, but we all agreed that even though the black would never be stripped off completely, the table would be enhanced by the black paint seeped into the grain. The gentleman refinishing the table even made a couple leaves for it so that we can seat more people.

I suppose that since WE bought the table, technically it really is not an heirloom, but it will be one day when our daughters have to decide about its future.

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: N is for Needlepoint

When my sister and I cleaned out our parents’ home, we had to make many decisions about what to do with all the stuff. Which things are truly “valuable” and which have only sentiment in their favor? Should we sell it, keep it, or throw it away? To help ensure a future for our family’s heirlooms, I plan to leave a booklet for my daughters telling the stories of what they will inherit one day. (Not TOO soon, I hope!) With this challenge I begin my book of Heirlooms.

is for needlepoint pictures.

Among the numerous things Momma inherited when she and my cousin cleaned out our aunt Violetta Davis Ryan’s home in 1990 were three completed needlepoint projects. Well, ALMOST complete. Three sets of cotton canvas had been worked with needlepoint yarn in the petit point style. They are the handiwork of my grandaunt Velma Davis Woodring, Violetta’s sister.

Velma was the artsy one. She painted. She sewed. She quilted. She did needlepoint. What her plans were for the three canvases is not known.

The design for each is a girl in profile. One holds flowers; one holds an umbrella.

The third? I can’t remember. The third one was missing some stitches. Now the whole thing is missing. Maybe we actually threw something away.

Anyway, Momma had the two cleaned and framed. 

The needlepoint pictures look girly and as such are perfect bedroom pictures. And that’s where they hang today - in a guest bedroom.

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: M is for Milk Glass

When my sister and I cleaned out our parents’ home, we had to make many decisions about what to do with all the stuff. Which things are truly “valuable” and which have only sentiment in their favor? Should we sell it, keep it, or throw it away? To help ensure a future for our family’s heirlooms, I plan to leave a booklet for my daughters telling the stories of what they will inherit one day. (Not TOO soon, I hope!) With this challenge I begin my book of Heirlooms.

is for milk glass.

Growing up, I always thought we were semi-rich. Not really rich-rich. Not Hollywood rich. But pretty darn well-off. I thought for sure my grandaunts Violetta Davis Ryan and Velma Davis Woodring were rich. Violetta owned multiple apartment buildings. Velma was a world traveler, taught in Korea, and routinely brought us amazing gifts of jewelry, kimonos, and rice dishes.

They HAD to be rich, right?

My sister and I have had many good laughs over some of the heirlooms and not-so-heirloom-worthy items we have inherited from our “rich aunts.” Case in point: milk glass plates. 

My plates on the dining room wall

My sister's collection

A stack of these things! Recognizing they are Depression glass, we anticipated back in 2009 that they would be selling at a good price, but eBay put our greed in check. Plates exactly like ours were advertised at $4 and $5. Today they are still selling in that price range with an occasional one for $10. A square one like my sister’s is $20.

Our little collection is a microcosm of milk glass history representing patterns sold by the main manufacturers Westmoreland, Hazel-Atlas, and Anchor-Hocking.

The size of the plates made me think they were used for dessert, but I have learned that milk glass was never used for dinnerware. Milk glass was used mainly in vases, jars, pitchers, cake stands, cruets, salt and pepper shakers, and sugar bowls and creamers. Milk glass plates were purely decorative.

My dining room wall of plates

Our plates might not represent the most desirable objects from the past, but grouped together, they fulfill their intended mission to delight the eye. The lacy edge of each plate is interesting on its own.

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: L is for Lamp

When my sister and I cleaned out our parents’ home, we had to make many decisions about what to do with all the stuff. Which things are truly “valuable” and which have only sentiment in their favor? Should we sell it, keep it, or throw it away? To help ensure a future for our family’s heirlooms, I plan to leave a booklet for my daughters telling the stories of what they will inherit one day. (Not TOO soon, I hope!) With this challenge I begin my book of Heirlooms.

is for lamp.

One of my great-grandmother’s finest possessions traveled from her home in Shenandoah, Virginia to that of her daughter Violetta Davis Ryan in Harrisonburg, then to my mother, and now to me with strict instructions:  It must not pass with the sale of the house.  In other words, take it with you. 

 

It’s this beautiful Victorian hanging parlor lamp - also known as a library lamp -  which has been retrofitted from kerosene to electric.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the parlor was the most important room in the home. It was where family gathered at the end of the day to read magazines, to look at a carte-de-visite album or stereoscope, or to play a game of cards. The parlor also was where adults were entertained on special occasions. The focal point of the parlor was a center table over which hung a kerosene lamp. The large umbrella lamp shade helped disperse light while at the same time preventing a draft from snuffing out the flame.

The pastoral design in soft shades of brown, peach, and green includes a young girl in a wooden boat as the larger scene and a river landscape with boaters seemingly continuing the story on the other side of the shade. The kerosene pot is decorated with houses and buildings dotted along the river.

Font and brass font holder

The brass hanger, font holder, and shade crown plus the full complement of prisms make this lamp truly exquisite. I’ve loved prisms ever since I watched Pollyanna charm that old geezer through the magic of prisms casting rainbows throughout the room.

In my research into the history of parlor lamps, I discovered two minor problems with my lamp. First of all, the prisms are missing from the upper prism ring. The second is the smoke bell seems too high. I think both issues can be corrected easily with the purchase of more prisms and some chain.

Prisms on both the
upper and lower
prism bands.  And
notice that the smoke
bell is close to the
chimney - eh, maybe
too close on this one!

 

This lamp is not everyone’s taste. It doesn’t even particularly fit the style of my home, but I like what it stands for, so it will remain right there suspended over the kitchen table until the day my daughters are instructed:  It must not pass ….

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.