Pilgrims on My Table

As far back as I can remember, my mother had these little Pilgrim candles out for Thanksgiving.

The labels on the bottom reveal that they were made by the Gurley Candle Company of Buffalo, New York. The Pilgrims cost 15 ⊄, and the turkey 29⊄.

When my mom bought these, probably back in the 1950s, 59⊄ was more than just pocket change and was carefully spent. She never lit the candles, keeping them in their original condition for decades.

When I married Robin, he came with lots of stuff. Among his treasures were more Gurley Pilgrims.

The little lady is like Mom's except for her grey dress, and the larger turkey is a duplicate of Mom's. I had never seen candles as big as the taller lady, nor a turkey as small is this little one.

Many years later, my sister found this little Indian girl in a thrift shop and gave her to me for Christmas.

She's a Gurley too. Until she joined my Thanksgiving candle collection, I didn't know they made Indians. The text on the bottom label is different from all the others...does that mean she's older?

Even if she's showing her age, she has a sweet little face, don't you think?

A few months ago, I ran across this pair of Pilgrims in an antique store.

They're the same size as Robin's taller lady, about 5 1/2 inches. I'm not sure they started life together as a pair, since their labels and prices aren't the same.

But they're just the right size to go with Robin's larger turkey, so now I have another perfect three-some.

And now, for the best find so far...

I found this whopper just ten miles from home! Our local chapter of the SPCA runs a second-hand store in town. Not long ago, I went in to see if they had anything new and this lovely fellow greeted me from a table near the door. I couldn't believe it! I didn't know Gurley made holiday candles this big. He's almost six inches tall!

He's in perfect condition, without a flaw of any kind that I can see.

When he was brand new, he was quite an investment at $1.19. I got him for a steal...only 50⊄!!

He towers over my other little turkeys. Do you suppose they made pilgrims this big? They would be at least eight inches tall, maybe taller.

Gurley candles are among my favorite vintage things. I always enjoy having them on display during the holidays, and put them where I can see them often. Besides these Thanksgiving candles, my little collection includes two Halloween candles and several Christmas ones. Do you remember Gurley candles from your childhood? For me, they evoke a comfortable aura of nostalgia. Sweet memories of home and family are something to be thankful for, are they not?

A Tale of Two (Or More) Dishes

When I was young, my family ate off of Blue Willow dishes. My grandmother gave my parents the set not long after they were married in 1948.

They weren't fine china, but they were good, sturdy dishes made to serve folks their daily bread.

Over the years, some pieces were cracked, 

some chips appeared,

and a few plates and cups were broken, but for the most part, they survived very well.

Somewhere along the line, we switched to these wheat dishes. I think they came in laundry detergent, but I'm not sure about that.

Finally, Mom went with Correlle, white with a gold border design.

But what I remember most are the Blue Willow. Maybe I liked them so much because I can remember seeing them used on TV, in westerns like Bonanza and my favorite show, Daniel Boone. A history buff from the beginning, I played pioneer and dreamed of living in a log cabin and wearing long dresses. The log cabin and long dresses were hard to come by in the 1960s, but the Blue Willow dishes greeted me at every meal. When I got my first apartment after graduating from college and landing a job, Mom helped me round up second-hand furniture, bedding, and kitchen wares. And she gave me the Blue Willow dishes, much to my delight. When Robin and I got married three years later, I added some newer pieces, made by Churchill, to complete a service for six. We've been using them for thirty years now.

In 2010 we remodeled our kitchen. We went from natural oak cabinets and a beige counter top...

 to plantation white cabinets and a dark green counter top.

 The new kitchen is lovely and I like it a lot, but it does not go with the Blue Willow dishes! The colors simply aren't a good fit.

Consequently, I've spent the last five years looking for new dishes. All the patterns I considered were either way too modern for my taste, way too fancy for everyday use, or way too expensive for my wallet. I like Fiesta Ware, and even borrowed a few plates and bowls from my sister to try it out. Although I liked the small bowls, the dinner plates were awfully heavy, meaning the serving bowls and platters would be heavier still, especially when full of food. So, I purchased a few little bowls, and I do enjoy these bright, happy colors in my kitchen. But Fiesta Ware was not the right fit.

Next, I tried dishes by Pioneer Woman, of Food Network fame. Ree Drummond is her real name, and she launched her own line of kitchen everything last fall. I thought her dishes were the answer to my dilemma, but alas, they didn't work either. The color was OK, but not great.

The plates and bowls are deep, which is good for eating, but not so good for stacking.

I wasn't particularly pleased with the quality, either. One plate has already chipped, and another is scratched (and we don't even have a dishwasher!). In the end, the price was great, but the dishes weren't.

I was beginning to think I'd never find the right dishes. As sometimes happens though, when I least expected to, I found them! Well, three pieces, anyway. The local SPCA chapter runs a second-hand store to raise funds and I like to stop in from time to time to see what treasures might be had. Last week when I walked in, there they were: the dishes I'd been looking for. There was a dinner plate, a square salad plate, and a fruit bowl, displayed on a wooden dish drainer and just waiting for me to arrive.

 The pattern is Strawberry Fair, by Johnson Brothers.

The white is not bright white; I'd call it plantation white because it matches my cabinets. The red is that antique shade that looks both ordinary enough for every day and elegant enough to be special.

I thought it would be easy enough to find and purchase a new set of these lovely dishes. Wrong. The website LoveToKnow says this:

Johnson Brothers also manufactured a pattern called Strawberry Fair. It is a red transferware pattern with the bulk of the motif arranged in a wide band around the edge. The rim on the plates is scalloped.Many of the bowls and cups have a small, matching motif inside. The bowl rims are decorated with a rope design, strawberries and daisies. This is one of the more unique of the strawberry china patterns. It was manufactured from 1959 to 1973.

Leave it to me to fall in love with a discontinued and apparently very collectible pattern! A little poking around on eBay and Etsy revealed that these dishes aren't plentiful, nor are they cheap. But now that I've used the three pieces for a few days, I don't think anything else will do.

I found eight dinner plates in this Etsy shop and decided to go for it and order them. They arrived in two boxes and oh my, the packing!! This photo was taken after I got the plates unpacked, which was quite a job and took me well over half an hour.

After I got the bundles out of the Styrofoam packing peanuts, there was cardboard and bubble wrap to deal with.

Each plate was wrapped in not one,

not two,

but three layers of bubble wrap!

There was lots of tape involved as well.

When I finally finished, I had this beautiful stack of dinner plates,

and this big stack of bubble wrap! (I added the pill box to give you a point of reference.)

Because one of the dinner plates had a tiny chip, the Etsy shop owner threw in a bread and butter plate as a bonus. How nice!

So, I'm good for dinner plates, and I have one each of the bread and butter, square salad, and fruit bowl. I guess I'll be haunting antique shops and searching eBay, and Etsy for good deals on the many other pieces I need.  It will take a while, but I'll appreciate them all the more for the wait. It's just like that old saying: "Good things come to those who wait."  And how sweet it is when the good things finally show up.

Winter Afternoon

Welsh Cakes in my mother's cookie jar!

Sweet way to spend a cold winter afternoon.

Click here for the recipe.

Who Is This Man??

It happened again! Pretty much just like before. If you're wondering what I'm talking about, click HERE to read about the first time. So here's how it played out the past two days, this time on my side of the family.

See this pretty picture frame?

It's an old one that came to me when my sisters and I emptied our parents' house last year.

It hung in the dining room, over the buffet, for as long as I can remember, and probably longer. As far as I knew, it always held this Currier & Ives scene.

This is actually a piece of heavy fabric. I decided to replace it with one of my photographs, so I took it to the framer's to have it put together properly. These big old frames are so heavy, and I wanted to make sure it was hanging securely on the wall. I dropped it off yesterday morning, shopped til I almost dropped, and picked it up before heading home. Sure enough, along with the frame, which now contained my pretty photo, there was this cardboard folder containing the Currier & Ives scene.

I loaded both in the car for the drive home. It was dark when I arrived, I was tired, and we had an overnight guest that needed supper. Consequently, the frame and cardboard folder lay unattended until this morning. I unwrapped the frame and tried to hang it, but it was too heavy to manage by myself, So I turned my attention to the folder, thinking about what to do with the fabric scene. After pulling it out and looking it over for a minute or two, I turned it over. The fabric had been stretched around something and taped with masking tape, which was coming loose in several places. No wonder; it had been there for decades.

Supposing that the fabric had been stretched around some kind of sturdy paper, I investigated a little further, pulling the tape completely loose on one side. I wondered if there was something on the other side of "paper" form.

Sure enough, there were two pieces of something...so I removed the fabric to find this familiar print.

I've seen this image many times. It must have been very popular in its day. I'm guessing this one came off an old calendar. But underneath it was the real treasure!

Another old portrait! The only thing is, I have no idea who this is! And alas, Mom and Dad are no longer here to ask. To my knowledge, he doesn't resemble anyone on either side of my family. Several years before her health declined, my mother put together an inventory of the antiques and heirlooms in the house, and the entry for the picture frame didn't shed any light on this man's identity:

Since my grandfather bought the frame, it could be that this portrait came with it. If so, that would explain why Mom covered it up.

It's a shame there was no name on it anywhere, just a few numbers on the back:

Unless one of my two aunts knows something about this, I guess this handsome gentleman will remain a mystery. But what fun to discover another old portrait! You just never know what could be hiding behind a picture.  Maybe you should go check your old frames...