A to Z April Challenge: I is for Iron Grate

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 iron fireplace grate.

It belonged to my great-grandmother Mary Sudie Eppard Rucker. I am trying to imagine the day in 1958 when my grandmother and her sister and brothers stood around picking over their freshly-deceased mother’s dishes, her jewelry, her furniture and whatever else. My grandmother inherited many fine items, but did she really want Sudie Rucker’s fireplace grate?

Fireplace grate belonging to Sudie Rucker

I guess so.

Whether my grandparents used it in their fireplace I do not remember, but my sister insists it was IN our fireplace when we lived in Cradock and that it followed us to “the new house” in 1971.

A little over 50 years after my grandmother volunteered to take the fireplace grate, my sister and I stood staring at it, debating who would get it. Throwing it away was not an option - it had age, it had family history even if we didn’t know what that history was. I’m pretty sure I grunted and said, “What am I going to do with it?” But my sister had a vision for its use.

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Two Paintings

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt features a man at the piano. On the wall is a painting that bears a slight similarity to one that once hung above the fireplace at my grandparents’ home.

 

Me and baby sister 1959

Too bad the picture isn’t in color. Then one could appreciate the varied shades of the teal of the water next to the olive green of the grass. The mother of pearl accents in the houses look like the lights are on. And no wonder - after all, it appears either a storm or night is approaching. All in all, it is a very moody painting - moody in a good way.

This is one of two paintings my grandmother inherited from her mother Mary Sudie Rucker. The other is this smaller square one. 

Square reverse glass painting

The color is still good and hints at the milky tones of its rectangular sister.

In my young mind, the two pictures were part of a single thought, with the mill and church being at the other end of the stream separating the houses in the other picture. I could sit in Grandma’s living room and stare at these paintings for the longest time creating little stories. Often I imagined arriving by rowboat to visit someone in one of the houses. Sometimes I imagined climbing out of the second story window of the mill and balancing myself on that wooden structure leading to the church. (What is THAT? Is it a chase? A fence?)

Eventually the pictures went to my mother and finally to me. I wanted to display the longer one, but I noticed the painting was damaged. The paint was flaking off.

This painting dates to the early 1900s when the ancient technique of reverse glass painting was still quite popular; adding touches of mother of pearl was too. Artists painted with acrylics and oils on the back of the glass and then turned it over. We view the image through the glass. Pastoral scenes like the ones here were probably easier to create than portraits since the artist was essentially painting backwards.

I looked for an artist who could repair the painting or at least prevent further damage, but no one would take the job on. So the long painting has been donated to a charity thrift store; maybe the frame will be useful to someone. I still have the smaller one, but it too is showing signs of paint ready to flake away.

Paint is pulling away from the glass.

I wonder how much longer this one will last.

Please visit Sepia Saturday for more stories of pianos, paintings, and curly-headed men.

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: D is for Doily

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 doily. I’m a sucker for a sweet doily. I have inherited lovely crocheted and tatted doilies from my grandmother and from my husband’s grandmothers. I have purchased doilies at antique shops and estate sales. Frankly I no longer know which is which.

Except for this one:

This very large doily was crocheted by my maternal grandmother’s mother, Mary Sudie Rucker. My grandmother sometimes used the doily on this very same table.

At one time doilies were a sign of upward social mobility. (Remember the scene in Anne of Avonlea when Diana Barry boasts about the number of doilies she received as wedding gifts!) The lady of the manor used doilies to protect her tables from being scratched by lamps, crocks, picture frames and other decorative objects. She used doilies on her tea tray to catch spills.

You won’t see Joanna Gaines or the Property Brothers staging their homes with doilies. As warm and fuzzy as "Home Town"’s Ben and Erin are, they haven’t featured any doilies either. Alas, doilies are considered old fashioned today, but I still like them and use them as they were always intended: to protect my furniture.

Two doilies
The large one covers the table
which is not in good shape.

I love this doily edged
with crocheted pansies.

Taupe colored doily -
its twin is on the other nightstand

I could not resist a
purple and yellow doily.

Those blue points!
Had to grab this one at an estate sale.

Even if my own daughters are not enamored of my doilies, I know of one person who appreciates them. My nephew’s fiancé, who loves all things vintage, will be using my doilies at their wedding reception this coming June. It is doubtful any of the guests will appreciate the significance of the doilies, but OUR family will know that some of these doilies are nearly 100 years old, still beautiful, delicate yet strong. The connection to family will not be missed.

Mary Sudie Rucker's handiwork

I am pretty sure Sudie Rucker’s doily would make Anne Shirley and Diana Barry swoon!

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Not Your Cup of Tea?

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt is a familiar scene: a married couple enjoying their afternoon tea in the garden. Tea. In a teacup. So refined. So genteel. But I have to wonder - do people use teacups anymore? In my house, mugs are the receptacle of choice. That seems to be the trend among my family and friends as well.

Teacups, dark pink lemonade glass, china trivet

However, I do have a small teacup collection, not of my making, though. Most of the teacups had belonged to my grandmother, but others came from my grandaunts Violetta Davis Ryan and Velma Davis Woodring. The teacups are displayed in a beautiful pine corner cabinet that had belonged to my great-grandmother Mary Frances Jollett Davis. I must admit, they are quite lovely.

 

Mary Frances's corner cabinet
filled with heirloom china

Demitasse set belonging to my great grandmother
Mary Sudie Eppard Rucker
The cups are marked "Bavaria."

I always thought such delicate teacups were just for show, jewelry for the house, not something one would ever actually drink from.

Then several years ago I attended a meeting in the home of an elderly lady who served tea in a variety of lovely floral teacups that looked much like my grandmother’s.

The thin china kept the tea piping hot - not tongue-scalding hot, mind you, just good and hot. The gentle clink as I rested the cup in the saucer was a pleasant sound that doesn’t come with everyday mugs, that’s for sure. Ah yes, this is the allure of fine china.

Coffee and tea at a meeting today are more likely to be served in a Styrofoam cup. At today’s bridal shower or baby shower, hostesses proudly set out matching paper plates, cups, and napkins coordinated with appropriately colored plastic forks. Pretty enough. But this ol’ dinosaur drags out the Jeanette Shell Pink milk glass snack sets that my family has entertained with for generations.  

 

Shell pink milk glass by Jeanette
Depression glass

I mourn the passing of the fondness for fine china and crystal. Don’t get me started on silver!

Grab a cup of tea and join us at Sepia Saturday.

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Don't Forget to Write

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt of a street scene with people coming and going reminded me of this souvenir of St. Petersburg, Florida.

My great-grandmother
Mary Susan "Sudie" Rucker 1875-1958

This is my great-grandmother Mary Susan “Sudie” Eppard Rucker. According to my grandmother, her mother loved Florida, and so she made a point to visit every year. She always brought back a souvenir, usually some shell-encrusted tchotchke – a bowl, a box, an ashtray. One of those souvenirs sat on my grandmother’s end table for as long as I can remember. Sadly – or perhaps not – it was not among the things that were saved and divided among her survivors.

On this particular trip dated around 1950 or 1951, Sudie’s big souvenir was this photo. As the story goes, her picture was taken for the newspaper. Why? Good question. Although the full story has been lost to time, one possibility is that she was newsworthy because she was wearing a coat. Who does that in Florida?

Given Sudie’s love of travel, it is not surprising that she signed my mother’s autograph book about ten or twelve years previous with this message:

Remember me in morning
Remember me at night
Remember me while away
And don't forget to write.
Grandmother Rucker

Let’s take a walk over to Sepia Saturday and grab some souvenirs.

Wendy

© 2016, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.