After I left Louisiana, my sisters stayed on to go through Mama’s things and get them sorted out. My family has a long history of dividing up heirlooms without drama, and this time was no exception. Mama had left a list allocating certain items to each of us. The larger items—china, silverware, furniture—can stay where they are for now. None of us is concerned that they’ll disappear.
When her mother died, Mama and her brother went to Granny’s house and did the same thing, without the benefit of a list. Granny and her sister had done the same thing years earlier. Unfortunately, they were all more focused on having things come out even than they were on keeping sets of things together. Now, Granny’s side of the family has incomplete sets and our great-aunt Sarita’s side has the other half of the incomplete sets.
My dad was an only child, so there were no siblings to split things with. Aside from that, neither of his parents had come from wealthy families, and even if they had, they had each had at least 10 siblings to divide things among. Even so, for what treasures she did have, Grandma had developed a system long before she died. From as far back as I can remember, if someone admired one of her things, she would put that person’s name on the bottom of the item with freezer (a/k/a masking) tape.
On Friday, I got a small box in the mail with my portion of my mother’s jewelry. Except for one ring, I didn’t know what else the box contained. The aforementioned ring was initially supposed to be Jan’s, but she didn’t want it. I was very happy to get, because it was my great-grandmother’s engagement ring. I already had her wedding band, which is engraved with her wedding date—October 22, 1895. Mama gave me the wedding band several years ago, prior to one of her “last” birthdays, because I had devoted a great deal of time to researching that branch of the family tree. Ironically, when she and Donald married, it was on October 22nd. She didn’t know, until years later, that it was her grandparents’ wedding date.
As I went through the contents of my box, I was struck by different emotions and memories. There was a very tarnished silver cuff bracelet with Mama’s initials from when she still had our dad’s last name. I couldn’t remember seeing it before, but it’s quite pretty. Another unfamiliar piece was a plain silver band with cut-outs. I’m going to polish it and wear it on my pinky. Of the three of us, only Jan inherited my mother’s (and her mother’s) delicate hands and small bone structure. Julie and I, like Daddy’s side of the family, are more “big-boneded,” and while Julie has been able to squeeze certain heirloom rings on from time to time, I never could.
I also got a baby ring, which I think is actually Julie’s, and a locket. Julie and I both had baby rings (why babies needed rings back then, I don’t know), but Jan didn’t. Maybe they had gone out of style by the time she was born. There’s a star sapphire ring, which I remember well—my dad surprised my mom with it when they were married. I can still hear her squeals of delight.
I also now own Mama’s high school class ring, which I can add to my collection of high school class rings (mine, Bunny’s and Daddy’s). I also now have two mother’s rings—one from Mama and one from Grandma. Mother’s rings were quite the thing to have back in the 70s. I vaguely remember when they got them.
When we were little, one of the things we liked doing most was going through our mother’s and grandmothers’ jewelry. It must be a girl thing, because Trinity does the same thing when she comes over. Granny kept jewelry in a big, wooden jewelry box on her dresser. She had lots of costume jewelry and a few valuable pieces. From early on, she had each of us pick our favorites, and left them to us when she died. Grandma kept her everyday pieces in easy reach, and her better pieces in a zippered bank bag, hidden under some lingerie. She also had us pick the pieces we would end up with. Going through the contents of my box the other day, I remembered seeing most of the jewelry from looking through Mama’s jewelry box in the old days.
But the most important items I got are probably, among the lot, the least valuable, money-wise: two nursing pins, one from college, and one from the State of Louisiana. Mama and Grandma were both registered nurses, and they both worked as public health nurses. Since I am the only registered nurse among “the girls,” I got all of Grandma’s nursing pins after she died. I keep them in my safe deposit box, and these will join them there. Unlike the other jewelry, they are truly irreplaceable: they represent the education and career achievements of two of my earliest role models—women who dedicated their lives to helping others.
Now, somebody in the next generation (or the one after that) needs to become a nurse so I’ll have a safe place to leave the pins when I go.
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