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 September 2007  Leadville, Colorado

Years ago when Jim’s grandmother passed away we inherited several pieces of her wedding china. The teacups and saucers are a soft turquoise blue that is unique. I’ve never seen another pattern like it. Grandma and I had written lots of letters over the years so I was delighted to have this physical reminder of her and the important role that she had played in my life. I could almost picture her as a young bride in 1920 making the journey from one end of Canada nearly all the way to the other. I wondered about the tremendous adjustments she had to make to move from her birthplace on the shore of Nova Scotia to the vast prairies of Manitoba. I wondered if she missed the sounds and smells of the sea.

Along with the china we inherited a lined box full of good silverware. The silver wasn’t as old as the china but had probably replaced the first set. If Jim’s Grandma had lived a life similar to my Grandma I suppose the wedding silver had worn sharp and thin from decades of hard use. And no matter how much they scolded I suppose some of their silver ended up lost and buried in muddy holes when the children needed digging utensils.

By the time my Mom was making a home in the fifties we were using cheap stainless steel on the family table. The good silver was kept in a wooden box that was supposed to keep it tarnish free in the long months between uses. Once or twice during the year the heavy box would come out and the (almost) tarnish free silver would show up next to the good china dishes for a holiday or special occasion. As a child I was so impressed with the coffin like box that was lined with red felt. Jim’s Mom had the same type of silver box and I can remember how amused her adult children were each time we washed and dried the silver. She would count the pieces as they went back into their box and the young adults would ask if she was afraid we were stealing the silverware. We rarely saw the silver in the months between the occasions that were considered special enough for its use.

When our kids were little we lost plenty of stainless steel spoons into the sandbox. When the cheap tableware was missing too many pieces it was replaced with another set and the old pieces went into our little trailer for camping. Our old mismatched tableware decorated picnic tables in lots of campgrounds all over the western states and Canada. I think it still sits in the little trailer in Heather’s yard.

Several years ago Jim and I downsized and unloaded a lot of accumulated “stuff”. We parted out a lot of household extras to the girls who were just starting their own households. I came across the heavy box of Grandma’s old silver and made the big decision to polish it up and use it on my table every single day. I was afraid that it would lose some of its special magic if I saw it every day but I still delight in the heavy, solid feel of it and the shine as it sits in the drawer. I see the flowered pattern every day and yet it still brings back thoughts of that young Canadian bride and happy memories of that dear old Grandma that she grew to be.

Here in Leadville the antique stores are filled with old silverware. Tourists snatch up these bits of old history to add to their collections. Jim’s very Scottish Grandmother would have been shocked to see what people will pay for a bent and tarnished old spoon. I can just hear her now, “That looks like something the children used to dig with.” She would be shaking her head at the folly that someone will pay a high price to own this ruined piece of old silver. She and I would laugh.