Can't be more tea here! No teacups!

I had a good time at my sister's house for Easter last week. While I was there I took a couple of pictures of her old china. Her's is a delicate pink flower pattern, and it is marked Elite Works, Limoges France on the back. After all these years I did not know she didn't have any teacups or saucers. None! But I'll be she didn't know I don't have soup bowls, either.

This is part of the china from a former ancestor that was handed down through our grandmother. She was our grandfather's second wife, and somehow she ended up with 2 sets of china. Remember the story that it was ordered on the way home from Monaco on a gambling trip? We don't know any better so we keep telling the story!

Be more tea, part 2

 Ok, yesterday's tea party went well, but I didn't get to talk about the cup or china after all. The conversation just didn't go there. Oh well.

I looked it up in some reference books, and it appears the mark on the back dates it to 1893. So, if it was ordered in France about the time it was made, it makes it older than I had previously thought. About 120 years old, to be more precise!

I also located the pattern in Arlene Schleiger's book, Two Hundred Patterns of Haviland China (Book II).

All of this is very interesting, but at the end of the day I'll wash the cup and put it away in the china cabinet again, and won't pull it out for quite some time. The only piece of it that gets used often (define "often") is the platter, which is magnificent.

Be more tea?

I'm loving the new commercial with Kermit and many "Animal"s. He's all calm and sipping a cup of Lipton tea, while the frantic Animal clones are behaving like stereotypical New Yorkers.

I've been invited to the Friends of the Library tea party today, and it has stirred up some emotions and stories in me.

My sister and I each inherited a set of china from our grandmother (we call Nanny). But the china was not Nanny's originally. I thought it was my great grandmother's, who lived with Nanny, but my sister is convinced it couldn't be her, because she was such a prude. That's the word my sister used. And she never even met her!

The family legend is that our ancestor (whoever it was) used to go to Monte Carlo on gambling vacations, and stopped in France to order china. My set is Haviland, from Limoges, and my sisters is marked Limoges.

Of course, my sister doesn't remember where she heard this legend. If it came from our natural mother it could have been fanciful thinking. There's not many around to ask anymore.

I think I need to send a letter to my uncle, asap.