Grandma Streeter's Family Silver

My Grandma, Pauline Roberts Streeter, grew up in a very, very small town in Kansas. She met my Grandpa, Paul Streeter, a tenor sax player for local dance bands,  when she was 16. He got a job with the local newspaper. They married and had my Pop, Tal when she was just 18. She had no further schooling past high school.

They moved to Manhattan, a college town to live with Great Grandma Streeter in a large white Victorian style house where she took in lodgers. Nothing in this story so far would indicate that my Grandma Pauline was anything other than a small town person with conservative taste and interests.

She was anything but ! She was an assiduous library goer, a family historian and genealogist corresponding with people all over the world. She joined a group of volunteers making gifts for a place called "The Art Box". She made Christmas ornaments and Gothic style papermaché angels that sold out as soon as they were put on sale. She was a doer.

Another aspect of Grandma Pauline that was to be very important to both my father and our family, was her appreciation for all things modern. Modern architecture, modern tableware and modern furniture. Paul and Pauline, lived in a modern house that they built themselves. Pocket doors, Charlie Parker on the stereo, alongside the big bands of the time. They loved music of all sorts.  

She was ( sorry Granny!) a terrible cook! But that didn't matter. There was always Manhattan's famous Vista Burger, owned by a Streeter cousin.

Recently I was thinking about what kind of cutlery I wanted to use in my home here in France with Mom's ceramics. I'd looked around the stores, Ikea, Habitat. All my usual haunts. Then I went on ebay and found a pattern by Dansk that just seemed perfect ! 40 pieces and it was very inexpensive. Paid up w PayPal. Low and behold if this stuff wasn't coming from...Manhattan, Kansas ! When I showed it to my Mom she said "Well of course! Grandma Streeter's pattern!  

So I'm thinking there are "comfort foods" and "comfort objects". We inherit all kinds of things from our families. Recipes, favorite music, china, silverware, a photograph. Me ? I got Grandma's "silver".    

My comfort objects for the table :