The Garden Club

My mother-in-law Ruth was a woman who loved bric-a-brac. There wasn't a surface of her home that was not filled with items that had caught her eye over her many years of window shopping.

Ruth was very particular about her favorite finds and didn't like for anyone to move about her carefully placed displays. She didn't cull through her mementos as seasons changed or a new item was purchased, rather she found yet another perfect spot to best enhance her newest acquisition.

One day, as a new member of Ruth's family, it occurred to me that the cabinets and buffets that offered her bric-a-brac a Place to Be must themselves hold treasures yet revealed to me.

I mustered my courage to ask, "Ruth, what do you keep inside your Hepplewhite?"

Side by side on our knees on the floor, Ruth pulled from the deep recesses of her buffet a multitude of cups and saucers and rather small plates. Each delicate in shape, each a different color, each a different pattern. "These are my Garden Club dishes." she said.

I was absolutely charmed as Ruth told me about the group of women who gathered together once a month at each others homes for over thirty years. Each woman had their own collection of mismatched cups and saucers. The woman of the club always admiring the set placed before them.

Ruth has been gone from us several years now leaving only one surviving member of the Garden Club. My mother-in-law's wonderful collection of luncheon ware has been divided among her daughters, favorite patterns chosen. On this day, May the first, I think of Ruth who called this day Decoration Day. Again something new and unexpected to me, absolutely charming.

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