Oh! The Things We Buy!
By Teresa Schreiber Werth
It was June 1969. Three days after my graduation from Elmhurst College, outside of Chicago. I packed up my little red Opel and drove to my first apartment and first full-time job as a full-time director of Christian education at a historic church in Spencerport.
This was 70 miles west of where my sister and I grew up in the city of Tonawanda, along the Niagara River, where my father owned a lawn and garden store and my mother was a stay-at-home mom.
My point: I come from a very middle-class family where extravagance was rare.
My starting salary was $7,000 a year. Church people were generous in helping me get set up in my apartment and my needs were modest. One big excitement was discovering a whole new city, Rochester.
I was immediately impressed by Sibley’s downtown, the Garden Café and all the exciting merchandise to explore.
One of the first things to catch my eye in wandering the many departments, was a soup tureen. It was white porcelain and it was in the shape of a cow, resting. She was absolutely stunning. There was a ring of dainty pastel flowers around her neck. The center of her back revealed a small lid with a place for a lovely, slim ladle. She was elegant and extravagant.
There’s no logic as to why this was the object that fascinated me most. Sure, I’ve always been proud that my grandfather was an old-fashioned milkman for Borden’s Dairy in Florida, where I was born. Sure, their “mascot” was Elsie, the cow. But this exquisite piece of art bore no resemblance to her laughing face. True, I had never encountered any soup tureen of any sort in my 22 years. I didn’t even know how to make soup much less know what it might be served in. Still, I was fascinated.
I don’t know how many trips I made back to Sibley’s to look at this odd bovine but eventually, I bought it for, I think, a whooping $40 and brought her home. Of course, I named her Elsie.
Elsie eventually lived in a lighted cupboard above our kitchen sink, where she has looked down on me daily for the past 54 years. I still admire everything about her. She is still elegant and extravagant and now she is also old! I don’t even know how many times we have actually filled her with soup. It really doesn’t matter.
Early in our marriage, we had friends, Bob and Peggy, come over for dinner (that did not involve soup). I pointed out Elsie, unable to contain my pride. Peggy seemed less than impressed, but that didn’t bother me. I loved Elsie. She was beautiful and she was mine!
As years rolled by, I began to think about Elsie’s future. What would happen to her when I was gone? Peggy was one of my oldest friends. I suppose I had forgotten her initial response to meeting Elsie years before. So another time when they were over for dinner, I proudly announced that when I die, Elsie would be willed to Peggy!
Peggy could not hide her displeasure. She was aghast! (Yes, that’s the right word!) “No, thank you!” she said. “Elsie is not for me! You’ll have to find her another home unless I die first, in which case, it won’t matter!”
I am seldom speechless, but right then, there were no words. I put on a brave face and agreed to look further for Elsie’s future home.
That disappointing episode was several years ago. I still adore Elsie as she smiles down on me and Peggy is still my dear friend. (I’m willing her a beautiful, large embroidered picture she made and had framed for me, to honor an event I staged in honor of the play, “Quilters” at a local theater, June 3, 1989.)
But my husband and I are now of that age where we are seriously thinking about decluttering and beginning to shed some of our accumulation of more than a half-century. So, one day recently, out of curiosity, I did an internet search for a mid-century cow-shaped porcelain soup tureen with a lid and a ring of flowers around its neck.
I was shocked! I found one almost exactly like mine that had recently sold for $925! I probably won’t mention it to Peggy.
Author’s Note: It has been pointed out to me that the tureen is a STEER not a COW. I stand corrected. Elmer not Elsie. That’s what happens when you’re a city girl!