Category Archives: Things

Found Items: 1. Grandma Patrick’s record of Baptism

Things, , ,

My mom’s house is a treasure-trove of interesting things. She has stacks, drawers, closets, kneewalls and rooms filled with stuff. Photos, letters, trinkets, newspaper clippings, reel-to-reel videos, and cassette tapes are a few of the items waiting to be discovered in my mom’s house. Some people may consider her a hoarder. I think she’s a keeper of family history.

One of the items I found in a pile of old photographs at my mom’s house was the record of my paternal grandmother’s baptism. She was born in Denmark, so the text is in Danish. The paper is yellowed and old and the spidery handwriting is hard to read. I posted a scan of the baptism record on Facebook with a plea for help deciphering it. Barbara, a long-time friend, suggested that her daughter, whose next door neighbor is from Denmark, might be able to help so I sent Teri an email and attached the scan of the document.

Grandma Patrick's Record of Baptism
Grandma Patrick’s Record of Baptism

After several emails back and forth it was determined that it reads something like this:

Emilie Margrethe Marie Nielsen
Daughter of [kroferpayter] Kristian Nielsen and wife Ane Marie Sorensen(?)
from the city of Rold in the parish of Hindsted in the district of Aalborghus

Born 8 June 1895
baptized in a church 14 July same year

Recorded 13 Dec 1897

I still don’t know what the word or words are just before my great grandfather’s name is. He was an innkeeper and according to Teri’s neighbor kro means tavern or beer establishment. Perhaps the word has something to do with that because it begins with kro.

Here is a photo of the building where my grandmother was born. I’d always thought she’d meant this was the city where she was born — but apparently she was born in the building — which was (and still might be) an inn.

The Story of the Kissing Clauses

Things, , ,

One Christmastime, long, long ago there lived a schoolteacher. The schoolteacher had many students and these students came from many backgrounds. Many of the students gave small gifts to the schoolteacher as tokens of the holiday season. Some of the gifts the students gave the schoolteacher were handmade by parents. Some were bought at the dollar store. Some were purchased at department stores. Sometimes the parents spent too much on the gift for the schoolteacher. Sometimes they regifted something they’d been given. If the schoolteacher thought about the gifts years later, she would probably remember most of them and who she got them from. The school teacher may even keep some of the gifts she received from her students for many, many years.  Some because they are genuinely useful. Others because she has fond memories of the student who gave them to her. And then there are the gifts from students whose parents were sort of celebrities at one time.

The Kissing Clauses was such a gift. It was a set of salt and pepper shakers shaped like Mr and Mrs Claus. They were both slightly bent at the waist, lips all a-pucker, ready to kiss each other. Not really exceptional — the family most certainly did not spend too much on the schoolteacher, but it probably was not bought at the dollar store and probably was not regifted. It was an average teacher gift from a sweet 6th grade girl. A sweet 6th grade girl whose father was an attorney in one of the most public court cases of the year — Bill Clinton vs Paula Jones. He was on Paula Jones’ side.

One recent night when the [former] schoolteacher put up her Christmas decorations she could not find the Kissing Clauses. The schoolteacher could not imagine a Christmas with out the Kissing Clauses so she looked one last time and found, behind the doll house in the knee-wall of the attic, a box of more decorations. Breath held, fingers crossed, she opened the box and there, wrapped in tissue so they would not break, were the Kissing Clauses. Once again, all was right in the world.

Merry Christmas to my blogging friends. Kiss someone you love this season.

The Kissing Clauses

Teatime

Musings, Things

I have too much tea. I’m a little afraid to count how many different kinds of tea I have for fear of embarrassing myself. There was a time when I’d proudly announce to guests that they had 13 different kinds of tea to choose from. This never got the impressed reaction I was hoping for — more of a blank stare than a delighted smile.

I started drinking tea when I was a young teenager — probably much later than some of you — but early for my kind. My folks drank coffee, which I refused to drink, but I loved my tea. I remember my Uncle Bud stopping by my parent’s house one Saturday morning and commenting on my tea drinking, suggesting I was too young.

I almost certainly took up drinking tea because of my Anglophilia. I devoured books about Britain, watched nothing but Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Masterpiece Theatre on telelvision, and dreamed of someday going to the United Kingdom and falling in love with a British man.

When I did visit the UK, tea was a fact of life. Every morning I drank my cup of PG Tips and every evening before bed I drank another with my host family. It was a time to talk and get to know each other a little more.

The year Dean and I moved to Pittsburgh is when I began to hoard tea. I’d always have a box of Lipton in the house as well as Sleepytime tea. I’d also have several different other varieties for a change of pace. After we moved to the DC area I bought more tea and felt that I always needed to have a dozen or so kinds of tea to offer people: Lipton, Assam, Constant Comment, Earl Grey, Jasmine (a favorite of Frances Lide), Sleepytime, Red Zinger, and so on.

Today I cleaned out part of the pantry and I uncovered my tea stash. Some should be tossed — they are a few years old, but some were bought just last week. I’ve decided to fill my wooden tea chest with a variety of teabags and have one type of looseleaf tea always available. I’d say I’ll get through this tea in no time — perhaps by the time Clare’s out of college. I also need to resolve to not buy any more tea until what I have is used up (or at least throw away a box for each new box I purchase).

Remind me to tell you about my teapot collection sometime…