Butter Dish

Good Morning,

It was the 29^th of June 1949, when my Grandmother Long (Dora Matilda Voigt) died in Magnet, Nebraska.  I was four years old at the time and have no recollection of her other than what I have seen in old photos.

We were living in Hillsboro, Oregon at the time and my mom, dad, Karen and I made the long trip back to the Midwest for the funeral.  Now my grandparents were pretty common folks and did not have a lot of nice things, so most of what they had were personal items.  It was many years later, maybe ten, when my mother told me that the Fenton Carnival Glass table set had once belonged to my Grandma Long.

I grew up around a plethora of antiques, as mom and dad were pretty serious collectors when we lived in Modesto, California during the early fifties.  They had such a large collection of old Carnival Glass, that now and then, they would have an open house to show the collection for charities.  Most of it was kept in a separate room dedicated to the collection.  I remember six large china cabinets all with lights inside along with other wall shelves, tables and many plates hung on the walls.  Even today, I recall it to be quite a sight.

Eventually, most of the Carnival Glass Collection was sold just before we moved to a new house in 1960.  I didn’t put it together then, but looking back, I have to think it was to get enough money for the down payment on the new house.  I know they loved the old glass and it had to be difficult giving it up, but then life is made of choices and priorities.

It wasn’t until after my dad had died and mom moved to Oregon, that I heard the whole story about Grandma’s Table Set.  You see… it was one of the very few things my father had gotten of his mothers after she had passed and that they had brought back from Nebraska.  A basic set Sugar, Creamer and Butter Dish.  The Sugar and Butter Dish would both have had lids.  For as long as I could remember, the Butter Dish did not have a lid.  Not knowing much about such things back then, I did not think much about it.  That changed when I started collecting glass myself in the 1980s.

It was one of those days when mom felt she needed to tell me things and identify family items so I would know later when she was gone.  When we came to Grandma Long’s Carnival Glass Table Set (Fenton’s Butterfly & Berry Pattern, circa 1911), I asked mom why there wasn’t a top for the Butter Dish.  Her countenance changed and she became maudlin. She explained that shortly after they had returned from Nebraska in 1949, she was dusting the pieces, which they had out on display and apparently a stray loop of fabric on the dust cloth caught the top knob of the butter dish lid and it was on the floor in pieces before she could stop it.  I could tell by the change in her voice that this was something which she had carried some guilt for a long time.  She knew it was an accident and she certainly did not mean to do it, but… well it was something she still owned.  I asked if during all those years of collecting antiques if she and dad had looked for a replacement.  They had looked and had never seen one, so there it sat, “topless” in the china cabinet for 45 years and a constant reminder of her self-imposed guilt for her  carelessness.

It was during these years that Jeanie and I were starting to collect old glass.  One Sunday while we were out cruising the shops in Salem, Oregon…we saw it.  There in a glass case, top shelf, sat a butter dish top only.  It was in perfect condition.  Apparently, from what the shop owner said, it had just been put out the week before by the owner who had finally given up on finding a bottom for the dish.  Sometimes, it is good to be lucky and the timing was perfect.  Needless to say, we bought it.

As mom got older she did not get out as much.  The seventy plus years and two knee replacements had slowed her down to where spending hours walking through antique shops, just became something she used to do.  Now she lived vicariously through our shopping adventures and treasure discoveries.  It became a little ritual that we would bring our findings at the end of the day over to moms and she would unpack them and we would talk about each find.  It was something she enjoyed and we all looked forward to.

We purposely put the wrapped butter dish top at the very bottom of the bag that day so it would be the very last item unwrapped.  Mom was like a kid opening Christmas presents.  She would feel the pieces as she picked them out of the bag and then would be thinking about what the piece could possibly be.  As she picked up the wrapped butter dish lid she paused, looked at us and then unwrapping it carefully to reveal its iridescent marigold color.  The flood of emotion, guilt and salvation released with the instant gasp was almost overwhelming and was something I had never seen in my mom before.  This was quickly followed with tears.  Tears of joy… tears of relief… tears of freedom from 45 years of self-imposed guilt.  Except for grandchildren, I doubt that there was much we could have given my mom that meant so very much.

It was how mom felt that keeps this memory alive in me today.  Sure we still have the table set, but now it means even more for the memories that go with it.

Love, Dad