Jewelry Pearls

For the first 10 years of married life my husband and I lived in the house that once belonged to my grandparents. Moving into a house with an already full attic can be a challenge, but to me it was also an experience I had been looking forward to for a long time.

Most of the family keepsakes were in that attic. As soon as we were settled I ascended the stairs and entered the attic to begin my project. Memories from my childhood flooded back with the musty smell and the sight of the old pictures hanging on nails, haphazardly nailed into the beams. My grandfather’s hammock was propped in a corner, now moth eaten and a skeleton of its former self, but still where my grandfather’s hands placed it so many years ago.

I selected a box from under the eaves in the back of the attic. I opened up the cardboard box and found it filled with items wrapped in newspapers from the early 1960’s. My pulse quickened with the excitement of my new discovery.

I found a small porcelain figure of a cocker spaniel, an oval mirror, a jewelry box and a very small bible. I have always loved vintage jewelry, so I opened the jewelry box first. Inside, there were some strands of beads and some clip on earrings, typical “old lady” style jewelry. Not the antiques I was hoping to find.

Thinking the box was empty, I turned it over to dump out the old crumpled newspapers, I heard a metallic “ping” as an object hit the floor. I tossed the scraps of paper back into the box and tried to find what made that sound. What I found was an antique rose gold wedding ring. It was about a quarter of an inch wide with a swirling leaf design across the center of the band. Inside were the initials A.B.B. and O.E.B.: the initials of my great grandparents.

I went back to the tiny bible and sure enough, it was inscribed to “Alice, from your Sunday School Teacher. 1893″ I was certain this entire box of items belonged to my great-grandmother.

I sat on the floor of the attic with my great grandmother’s wedding band in my hand and looked at it. The engraving of the leaf pattern had faded and part of the band was worn thin. From what I knew about my great grandmother, this ring was a good representation of her life.

Alice came to the United States from Liverpool England as a child. She grew up in Massachusetts as the much-loved daughter of a mill worker and married my great grandfather, who was a farmer. She gave birth to three sons and endured her youngest dying in her arms at the age of five. She survived the Great Depression, World War II and all of the joy and pain of this world until she died in her sleep in 1962. I heard stories about my great grandmother all my life but I never knew her, until I saw her life etched by time on that ring she wore until the day she died.

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