From Where I Sit

By Pat Spilseth, Columnist

I’m still unpacking mystery boxes and trying to figure out where to store all the stuff we brought to our new condo!  Some neighbors have rented storage, but I know those stored items will soon be forgotten. 

What makes some items a valuable collectible, another piece of junk. Why do we save some things and relegate others to gather dust in the garage or a spare room? Why do we toss some items that formerly were considered to be treasures?

Mom’s china cup and saucer collection: wide mouthed bone china cups featuring summer daisies, lilies, Christmas poinsettias, tiny cups of dainty violets, and delicate Norwegian porcelain cups in red and blue remind me of mom, chatting and drinking coffee with her pals on her screened porch.    

China cups and saucers were the rage for collectors of “niceties” in the fifties and sixties. Mom added to her china cup and saucer collection when the family drove to Canada or “up north” for a quick vacation from the office.  Friends would give gifts of a handkerchief or a fancy cup and saucer for birthdays. Fine china cups and saucers could be purchased at Callaghans’ Hardware store, and Norwegian cups and saucers were found downtown at The Gift Cupboard. When traveling to far away vacation places as the Badlands, Texas, Alaska and Florida, women would add to their collection. 

Downtown, folks would gather for morning coffee at the Chimes Café or Wimpy’s, but Doris and Erv Knoff knew their clientele just wanted a good cup of coffee and a chat. Nothing fancy was required. Their coffee drinkers were men coming in for an early morning breakfast or courthouse workers on a lunch break. They wanted java in a substantial white mug with a handle a working man’s large hands could get a finger through, a cup that wouldn’t shatter when tapped on the counter for more coffee, or break when toasting “Good Morning” with a neighbor.

Usually reserved for special occasions like coffee parties with the girls, Mom’s china cups and saucers were displayed in her china closet with the rounded glass doors and beveled glass top. Some days Esther would use the paper-thin china cups for her morning coffee on the screened porch. Rocking in a lawn chair as she sipped her weak Lutheran coffee, Mom could greet neighbors walking to work or to the grocery store. Climbing trumpet vines of orange flowers and lush green leaves covered the porch screens, giving comfortable shade to those relaxing on her porch. 

Mom’s pals took pride in their collections. Several had impressive collections of valuable cups and saucers displayed in their dining room breakfronts or china closets. Others collected salt and pepper shakers, sugar and creamer sets, pitchers, or candlesticks. Mom’s ice fishing buddy, Evelyn Husom, had shelves in her kitchen displaying salt and pepper sets of unparallel numbers. I remember salt and pepper pigs, windmills, Jack and Jill, His and Her moon door outhouses and Hansel and Gretel shakers. China painters created s/p sets from endless possibilities of subjects. It was understood that salt shakers had more holes than the pepper shakers for an easy flow of the seasoning.

My Aunt Ruth had a collection of colored glass vases. At her auction, the auctioneer, with his yodeling voice, placed the vases in a locked case to avoid any pilferage. Evidently some vases were quite valuable. Women loved to display their hobnail water and wine glasses, delicately etched crystal water glasses, serving pieces of pressed glass butter dishes with rounded glass tops, divided relish dishes and candy dish collections of hand painted china, pottery, colored and milk glass varieties.

Kids collected bubble gum cards to trade with their friends. We bought bubble gum downtown at the dime store, not only to chew that stiff card of bubblegum pink with white dust on it, but because the plastic package would contain valuable trading cards. Boys collected baseball cards and bargained for a trade with their pals. Especially valuable were photo and stat cards of Joe DiMaggio, Babe Ruth, Sandy Koufax, Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron. Jack knives were prized possessions as well as Indian arrowheads found in the hills of Rockin’ Tree Canyon near the golf course or the ski hill woods. Of course, fishing lure collections were big. Whether the lures were plastic, feathered, wiggly or glass eyed bugs, they were colorful and fit into separate little open cubicles of tackle boxes.

Girls collected movie star photo cards. I had tall stacks of my favorite glamour girls and handsome movie heroes. Remember clipping and thumb tacking photos of those heart throbs like Troy Donahue and Jimmy Dean on bulletin boards or on a bedroom wall bedroom? Did you trade movie star cards of Debbie Reynolds and Doris Day, Sophia Loren and Bobby Darin, Elizabeth Taylor and Cary Grant? Their glossy photos with signatures at the bottom were treasured. Today, those movie star and baseball cards are valuable.

Young girls had doll collections in the forties and fifties. I had a small collection of tiny Storybook dolls, ranging from 3 1/2-7” in height, I remember a photo taken in my bedroom at our jail home of Terri Anderson and I with our combined collection of dolls posing in my little red rocking chair. We were fond of the Cinderella, Little Miss Pattycake and Hush a Bye Baby dolls. But the grand prize was a “dressed up” doll collection of lovely ladies with tiny hands and smiling faces in ball gowns. There were bride dolls, bridesmaids, a flower girl and ring bearer, a storybook series as well as series of nursery rhyme, masquerade, around the world, sports, seasons, family and American Girl dolls. 

Nancy Ann Abbott’s Storybook dolls were prized by most girls. I begged for a doll from each country around the world. There were dolls from Norway, China, Russia, Germany and Mexico, but I don’t remember any dolls from Africa or South America. Those countries with the strange, unpronounceable names didn’t exist for most of us in our sheltered world.    

Barbie dolls followed the Storybook dolls series. American Girl dolls are popular currently, but their variety is nothing like we had in the fifties with our gowned beauties. Our Storybook dolls were a classier design compared to the pink ponies and the Barbie dolls of my daughter’s generation in the eighties. We parents did allow our girls to play with the Barbie and Ken dolls, though the dolls’ body images were questionable. 

My folks gave me a “walking doll” in the fifties for a birthday or a Christmas present, quite the prize in my day. That doll was packed away in a dresser drawer, in her original cardboard box, her original hair intact and dress unfettered. I wasn’t allowed to play with my prized doll. What kind of a gift was that! Our parents came from the Depression era, always aware of the need to “save for a rainy day.” We had shoes and clothes we wore only on Sunday and a separate set of school clothes and play clothes. Interesting, I wonder how many shoes were hardly worn before we outgrew them. 

Today Ebay and Craig’s List sell many treasures of yesteryear at exorbitant prices. How many of us saved childhood treasures that have no value to us now? We think we’ll get around to sorting or throwing them, but they chip, gather mold, yellow, curl up and accumulate dust in spare bedrooms or the garage. 

Esther’s cup and saucer collection is not junk to me. Sipping coffee in her china cups reminds me of mom. They give me good feelings. To another person, they’d mean nothing. I’ll sit a few more minutes, recalling our coffee conversations on the porch.

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To contact Pat, email: pat.spilseth@gmail.com.