Thursday, May 22, 2008

My Grandmother's Silver Spoons

One of the things I chose from a box of my grandparents' things was a collection of silver spoons. I brought home about a dozen of them. This weekend, while the roommate and I settled down to watch a couple episodes of Monarch of the Glen, I polished silver.

These five are all engraved with my grandmother's name, Ruth, on the front. On the back they are all dated: 2-28-15, 2-28-17, 2-28-18, 2-28-19, and 2-28-20. Yes, that's her birthday.

Seeing as she was born on that day in 1914, she didn't pick out these spoons herself. They must have been gifts from someone else.

I wonder who bought silver spoons for the baby girl? Her parents? Another relative?

5 comments:

Barb said...

And did you enjoy Monarch of the Glen? Dave and I checked in out through Netflix last week - on Paul's recommendation. Not too impressed. Much prefer Ballykissangel.
Ohh...and....love the spoons.

Megan Noel said...

er, would it be really rude if i asked for one of the spoons?

i think they should be framed in a shadowbox frame, btw. unless you want to keep them in a cup or something. anyway, that would be one option. how big are they? i think mom has some tiny tiny sugar spoons.. i wonder who those were? i could design a beaded piece around a tiny spoon. hmm...

Marti said...

B - I like Monarch! We've seen all of season 1 now, which of course ended on a cliffhanger (sort of). I think the episode(s) I watched with Bennetts were from season 2. I think Deb will put more of them in her Netflix queue. Part of the reason we're enjoying this is that Deb is going to be making a trip to the UK with her family later this summer, and that's one of the areas they will visit. You've mentioned Ballykissangel before but I haven't seen any of it, so will put that on the list as well!

Meg - Yes, of course you can have some of this stuff; I took more of this stuff than I usually would because Aunt A. was planning to take anything left to the antique mall to sell - or at least that's what she said - and because I expected to split stuff with you. I'll take pictures of the rest of it and we can discuss what you'd be interested in.

I was trying to decide how to display the spoons. They don't look good in a cup or bowl; they need something different. Some of them are too big for the usual display racks. There are a number of commercially available display racks/cases, e.g., these ones: http://www.usadisplay.net/spoon.htm

I kind of wish I had a china cupboard; seem to be acquiring enough dishes and knickknacks to make that worthwhile. But we have too much furniture in our living room already, and the kitchen is quite small. Maybe we could replace the microwave cart with something prettier. I have my N. African perfume bottles and a few things like that on mom & dad's old buffet piece but I don't have anything with glass doors, which would be better.

paulmerrill said...

Heather & I loved BOTH Monarch of the Glen & Ballykissangel. (We watched Ballykissangel when we lived in the UK, so it was sort of "live".)

Glad you've enjoyed Monarch, Marti! We got so thoroughly addicted that we almost cried when the last episode ended.

Dean Smith said...

My guess would be that the spoons were a gift to my mother from her Aunt Bina who lived in Bement, IL. Aunt Bina was a nurse and I remember that she particularly favored the enema as a treatment for almost everything. I have been researching the family history both before and after John Priestley -- who wyoud be your great great great great Grandfather, Marti. He is the one who found the cross under a rock in the ruins of an old abbey in Lincolnshire, England around 1830 or so. He emigrated to Bement in 1870.