Storied Objects

I am fascinated with objects and the stories they tell. My house holds all kinds of objects, each with their own story and each full of meaning, many of which you will come to know on this blog. Sometimes when I see an object I actually know the story of it and sometimes I have no idea what the real story is but I can imagine what the stories might be. But there is always a story.

I know the story of this ring and the plate it sits on in this photo. My maternal grandma’s sister, Libby, died in her early 20’s. She had left her home in Pennsylvania and gone off to college in Tennessee, not a common thing for a young woman in the 1920's. In the fall of 1927 my great-grandparents got notification that she was sick. Before they could get to her she had died. The death certificate that I have a copy of lists the cause of death as influenza.

Libby was a gifted artist and she painted beautiful pieces of china. This is her signature on the back of one of the plates I have and with it the ring she wore with the initials of the man she was dating when she died. I looked him up too. He lived a long life and eventually went on to become an Executive at Kodak.

Sometimes objects tell stories that are bittersweet…stories of her two loves, both never finished.