The Sugar Bowl: Sweetest Memories

My earliest memories of Grama's dishes were from Sunday Brunch.  We had brunch at her house every Sunday until I was in college, she lived in a duplex that was built shortly after WWII.  From age 1-4, we lived next door, on the other side.  Grama worked as an RN, and mom stayed at home, so Grama didn't babysit me often-but I was often running next story to see my Grammy.  As the mother of three boys, I was the first little girl in her life, and greatly doted on.  She often wore bright floral shift house dresses; I remember clinging to her skirts.

Sunday Brunch always consisted of French toast, meat (bacon for many years, then sausage) and tea, followed by dessert.  Grama mixed eggs and water in a shallow metal dish, ideally sized for dipping pieces of Wonder white bread in to coat each side.  In her old electric griddle she swirled bacon grease from the prior week she kept in a jar in the fridge. I shudder at the memory-I loved my Grama, but I hated French Toast!  Years later she switched the water to milk and added vanilla to the mix, but I never acquired a taste for it (can you blame me? No amount of syrup helped!). I hiply helped her with every task, setting the table with plates so plain I don't recall them, but then lovingly putting a special mug or cup at each place setting.  I had an Anchor Hocking white Raggedy Ann & Andy mug.  My sisters also had Anchor Hocking mugs; Jenny had the orange printed Snoopy Dreamcicle mug, and Kelly had Strawberry Shortcake.  My mother had an ivory mug with a beige floral print.  Interestingly, I don't remember my father' smug or my uncle's, but my Grama's?  It was American Limoges' Old Dutch patterned teacup.  So dainty and bright-just like Grama, who although petite loved to wear bright florals.  What made her teacup extra special is that it matched the ever-present sugar bowl on the table.  I loved that sugar bowl-I loved the petite little lid that I carefully lifted, and the neat round sugar spoon nestled inside.  I loved sugar in my tea, and delighted in heaping FOUR rounded mounds into my steaming mug.  Grama always had milked poured in my mug before she brought it to the table; I realize now that was to moderate my tea intake.  (At her death, imagine my surprise to find the matching Old Dutch creamer next to the sugar bowl in her cupboard!  It was never brought out in all those years of tea.)

The tea, of course, was Red Rose.  She steeped five bags in her automatic coffee pot, and served us at the table.  After French toast with her homemade syrup (or Smuckers cloyingly sweet blueberry syrup) and bacon or sausage, dessert was served with another round of tea.  Typically, someone made comments about the amount of sugar I used-to the point Grama bought LIQUID SACCHARINE for me to use!!!  4 drops maximum-the chemical sweetness was over the top!  Within a year, the whole saccharine/cancer scare came to light, and the liquid saccharine disappeared from the table. (Seriously!!). I began protesting at some point about the French toast I was forced to eat, and one Sunday, my plate was set with a plain piece of bread on it.  Grama was determined I was happy-especially since white bread was banned at hone!   More tea was poured after we ate-and conversations were expected.  Dessert was typically cookies she had baked and stored in tins in her storage room, nestled among waxed paper.  After we finished, a deck of cards was brought out, and rounds of Rummy, Uno and Four Square.  My parents typically went home after an hour, but I stayed with Grama.  She told me stories of her childhood, replete with horses and buggies, snows as high as the second story windows, and little sisters lost.  Always with more tea, and always with the sugar bowl.

Do you have?

When I was 13, I worked up the courage to ask Grama for the small stack of depression glass she had on a shelf in her storage room.  7 plates, all varying sizes, of monax American Sweetheart dishes.  Grama had purchased them in 1935, from the Hudson's Department store on Grand Avenue in downtown Detroit as a 25th anniversary present for her parents.  She was a young nurse, a year out of school and working at Henry Ford Hospital in the pediatric unit.  "I bought twelve place settings and all the serving pieces as their anniversary gift." She recalled.  "Mother loved them, but my dad thought the gift frivolous.  When Mother died in '43, I took them all since he didn't appreciate them."

My first recollection of those dishes was in the mid-seventies, when I was around 7.  Grama had them stored in a bureau drawer at the bottom of the basement stairs.  My dad's cousins Judy & Cathy had come by, and were looking at the pieces.  I don't remember if they bought them or Grama gave them to her nieces, but I knew their mother, Aunt Martha, also had a few of her mother's dishes (perhaps the sisters each bought part of the original set?) A few years later, my mother and grandmother returned to that drawer in the basement.  We were heading to Florida, and her sister wanted to purchase some of my grandmother's pieces.  I distinctly remember the oval serving tray coming out-and wanting it.  I was 9 years old.

Grama moved in 1983, and the few remaining dishes landed on the shelf in her storage room.  Judy & Cathy claimed a few more, until there were just 7 remaining.  Growing fearful she'd give the last few away, I asked her for them in 1984.  Gene Florence's Collector's Encyclopedia of Depression Glass was frequently checked out of the local library.  At 16, I drove myself to local antique stores, hunting for that elusive translucent white glass.  Widowed at 24, I impulsively bought pieces to give myself 10 place settings-not retail therapy per se, but rather a desire to have control over some area of my life.  Grama passed a month before I remarried in 1998.

At the time of my first wedding, I didn't register for china-instead, I had the clerk write I would like any pieces of monax American Sweetheart instead.  I received none (this was pre-eBay) but I have often thought there are others, like me, who would have preferred to receive Grama's dishes as her wedding dishes.  I have used my American a Sweetheart off and on in the past 18 years as my everyday ware or something special-it always connects me to my Grama, who used the same in her kitchen from 1943 until the early sixties.  They are more than dishes-they are memories.

Do you have Grama's dishes, too?  Tell me about them.