Next month will mark my five-year anniversary as a non-smoker. I’m happy to say that I don’t miss it at all — which surprised me at first, since all I’d ever heard from ex-smokers was how much they still craved cigarettes. Once, during one of the eleventy thousand times I tried to quit, someone who had successfully quit told me “not a day goes by that I don’t long for a cigarette. Not a day.” As you might imagine, this was less helpful than he might have intended. But once I decided that I’d had enough, that was it — I really had had enough.

I lied. There are times I miss it. Not enough to run out and spend $12 on a pack of smokes. (I remain ever curious about the cost of cigarettes both in and out of New York.) What usually drove me back to smoking was watching someone else enjoy it. That doesn’t make me crave a cigarette anymore, except when I’m watching Mad Men. It’s not even that everyone on that show smokes, it’s that they make it look so damn GOOD. Occasionally you’ll see Don reach for a stress cigarette, but mostly the actors on the show make it seem natural, like breathing. And it looks like they all truly ENJOY it.

And I think I know why. They had accessories.

I’ve had this collection stashed away in a dresser drawer for a while and rediscovered it as I was cleaning it out to get it ready to move (I’m not moving, just the dresser is). Most of it belonged to my grandmother, who I believe started smoking at a very early age (if I’m wrong, I’m sure my mother will correct me in the comments) and didn’t quit until her 70s. The case was made in Italy and holds less than 10 cigarettes, which I associate with ladylike behavior. Ladies didn’t chain smoke. There would be no reason for ladies to keep more than 10 cigarettes in a case at a time.

What kills me, however, is the small oval box with a cigarette on its lid. I remember finding this at my grandparents’ house and asking whether it was a pillbox. (Why would a pillbox have a picture of a cigarette on it? I don’t know. But cigarette advertising used to promote the health benefits of smoking. People were crazy.)

It’s not a pillbox. It’s an ashtray. A portable, fits-in-your-clutch ashtray for the lady smoker on the go. There’s even a tab on the inside on which to rest a cigarette. It’s fabulous. Oh, yes: I used this.

(Wouldn’t it be great if smokers had these again? No more sidewalks littered with butts!)

The lighter belonged to my grandfather, who quit smoking long before I was born. The lighter doesn’t work, but it’s a gorgeous art deco-y piece, engraved with his name on one side and initials on the other.

Equally gorgeous is my grandmother’s cigarette holder. I think it’s ivory, which makes me a little uncomfortable since an elephant was probably slaughtered in order to make it, so to make amends for how much I love it I will donate money to the World Wildlife Fund. But I do love it. I love that it has its own case. And the rose design is so elegant.

This I did use. And you know, I did feel more elegant and glamourous, as though I should have been wearing elbow-length gloves and had my hair piled in curls on top of my head.

(OK, I might have worn elbow-length gloves while smoking a cigarette in the holder. And also pearls. When I was in graduate school. Possibly while grading papers.)

No related posts.

My grandmother was a classy dame. So classy, in fact, that she’d probably disapprove of my calling her a dame. She was a lady.

(When she died, and family gathered together to talk to the rabbi about her life, I remember my mom and aunt saying something like, “She never wore pants. Because ladies didn’t wear pants.” And in that moment my mind positively reeled, as though I was flipping through scene after scene with my grandmother from my childhood to the last time I saw her, and by golly they were right. I’d never realized it in those terms before, but that woman never wore pants. Only skirts. Only ever skirts.)

My grandmother wore hats, though, when it was fashionable to wear hats, and even when styles changed and ladies didn’t wear hats on a daily basis anymore, she kept most of her hats, the daily wear hats as well as those for fancy occasions. True, my grandmother was a skirt-wearing lady who never threw anything out, but I like to think she kept these hats not because she thought they’d come in useful someday — like the jewelry boxes filled with paper clips we kept finding in her desk drawers — but because she thought they might some day become heirlooms. Right now I think she held on to them because she knew someday I would have them, and even though they were meant to be worn, that I’d treasure them as works of art.

Because you guys — look at these hats.

The top one, with the hearts on the veil, is one of my favorites. I think it’s one of the older hats, from the 1940s maybe? And the bottom one intrigues me as well because I’ve never seen anything like it and have no idea when it’s from. All I really have are the labels inside to work from.

So I know that she purchased most of her hats from Field-Schlick, a now defunct department store whose flagship was in downtown St. Paul, on Wabasha and Fifth. I dug a little and found this photo of the Wabasha St. entrance in the Minnesota Historical Society’s online collection:

Although it’s more likely that my grandmother went to the store on S. Cleveland, since it was closer to her house (the house I grew up in).

I also found out that Field-Schlick used to be D. W. Ingersoll & Co. and opened in 1856. By 1896 it had become Field-Schlick, according to an advertisement I found in the St. Paul Globe. (The ad was for a sale on fancy parasols and something called “crash skirts,” but I couldn’t find any information online about what a crash skirt was.)

I do happen to have one of the hatboxes from Field-Schlick:

And one that might interest other native Minnesotans, from Dayton’s. Look at that old logo:

(Oh, Dayton’s. Now you are Macy’s. It’s a little sad.)

More hats:

This one strikes me as a winter hat. The beadwork suggests it was for nice outings like to the theater, but based on what I know of my grandmother I’m more inclined to guess that she wore it on a regular basis, like for shopping or lunch with the girls, or perhaps to normal Friday night services at the synagogue.

This one I can’t picture my grandmother wearing at all, even though it’s her favorite color. The style looks like it would be suited more for a young girl, so my guess would be that this was my mom’s or aunt’s:

I almost didn’t see this one when I was unpacking everything, but it must be part of a bridal veil.

And this one . . . this one simply takes my breath away.

How on earth did hats like this go out of style?

Ever since my grandmother’s hats came into my possession I’ve pondered the best way to display them — well, best and least expensive. I’m wary of simply hanging them as is because some of them are fragile and they’ve been preserved so well through the decades, I don’t want to be the one responsible for their decay. So I think a sort of acrylic box that could be wall mounted would be the way to go, but that’ll take some scratch, and I’m not there yet.

No related posts.

I own a number of things that I inherited from my grandparents — on both sides, I suppose, but mostly from the ones I lived with growing up. And by “inherited,” I really mean these are things I picked up from their house when we went through it to prepare it for sale after my grandfather’s death in 1997.

Some of the things are big and required movers to get from their place to mine. Most of them, however, are small items — and yet, though they are a fraction of the size of a piano or dining room hutch, hold much more of my grandparents in them.

Like these . . . I guess they’re saucers? My grandmother would use them as thread scrap receptacles when she worked on an embroidery project. When she got to the end of a piece, she’d snip off the end with her gold stork scissors and put it in one of these. There wasn’t a wastebasket near her spot on the couch, so this saved time. The next time she’d get up she’d bring the collection of thread scraps with her to dispose of them.

When she taught me how to work needlepoint, and then cross stitch, and later crochet and knitting, I’d use one of these saucers for my own thread and yarn scraps. I’d come home from school and we’d sit at opposite ends of the red and white upholstered couch, watching late afternoon TV — usually a syndicated epsiode of M*A*S*H — while we worked on our projects. I know the first thing I ever made was a cross stitch of my name, in a bubbly font decorated with hearts, using purple for the letters and pink for the hearts. SO GIRLY! I don’t think I was even 10 years old yet, and I chose the colors, but I was also embarrassed by them. I think my mom still has it somewhere; next time I’m home I’ll try to get a picture — especially since I think there’s a post on its own in this little side narrative.

I’m pretty sure these objects were not meant to be used as table top disposal units, and I am positive that my grandmother used them for this purpose instead of putting a small wastebasket next to her seat on the couch because the saucers were pretty and less intrusive than a clunky trash can.

So they’re mine now, and I keep them in the kitchen, in the cupboard with the plates and glasses. I’ve used them in ways my grandmother would probably not approve — one was just used this morning as a spoon rest for my coffee stirrer. They also make fantastic soy sauce bowls for when I bring sushi home, and though she probably would not have been a sushi fan, I think my grandmother would be happy knowing that these delicate, decorative saucers also have a practical use she hadn’t foreseen.

Now that I’ve picked up embroidery again, I brought one of the saucers out from the kitchen. Even though I have a wastebasket nearby, I like how it feels to put my embroidery floss scraps in a saucer first, because it was how I first saw them used, and how I first used them. And yes, a part of me feels like I am 70 years old and should order plastic coverings for my chairs and sofa and whatever else old ladies are supposed to do. But mostly what I feel, what I’m saying is — “I remember.”

No related posts.