So I grabbed the ladder climbed up to the top of it and started emptying everything out of my cupboards.
I found all kinds of treasures, especially way up in the highest cupboards - I had stashed things I seldom use way up there when we moved in, and because I need a ladder to open those - had never bothered with them since.
One of the things I hauled down from a top cupboard was this corn teapot.
My Mother had a cornice over her kitchen window, and this teapot sat up on that cornice, for as long as I can remember. When my Mother passed away and Dad was selling his home, he asked me if I wanted it, and I said yes.
The teapot had belonged to his Grandmother - my Great Grandmother Effie Owens.
Effie lived in a second story apartment in downtown Cedar Rapids Iowa, when I knew her as a very young child. I remember going to visit her with my family when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I can see her in my mind... a real elderly grey-haired lady, who wore black leather shoes - you know the old-fashioned ones that look like army boots that old ladies used to wear. She wore heavy cotton stockings, a house dress and an apron.
She was quite the character - very comical and very kind.
She wasn't the "real" Great-grandmother, but the second wife (former housekeeper) of my Great-grandfather after his first wife passed away. Back in a time, when those things mattered - it made no difference to our family at all. Everyone loved "Grandma Owens" and she returned that love in spades.
I still have cards and letters that she sent to me as a child - me a little Canadian Great-grandchild that she might have seen twice in her lifetime, but still she wrote to me several times a year!
When I pulled the teapot out of the cupboard, I took a good look at it, and like I have now learned to do from my friend Lou - I turned it over and looked at the bottom of it.
And I took a picture and messaged it to Lou!
I am pretty sure that this teapot would have been purchased in the 30's or 40's at the "Five and Dime"... American term I heard my Aunt Margaret say so many times, for department stores like Ben Franklin or other variety department stores, that carried just about anything you could ever hope to own. It most likely was very inexpensive as well.
It took no time before I got a reply back from Louise telling me that for years she had looked for corn objects like the teapot - unsuccessfully! She checked out my teapot and determined a value of 75.00 on it based on similar pieces for sale online.
That's not a ton of money, but it's not bad either, for something that was probably purchased for very little money and has sat around on cornices and in cupboards for years and years.
I reckon, it's time to leave it out for all to see and admire.
So here it sits, on my pretty old cabinet in my kitchen. I can look at it hundreds of times a day - and I can remember Effie Owens, each and every time I do so.
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