Betty Crocker silverware

I don't often talk about the sweetness of being poor, but there is a sort of happiness in small things.  My husband brought home a wooden box of flatware that was his grandmother's.  There were two different sets of obviously "the good silverware".  It reminded me of my own grandparents with the special wooden box that only made an appearance at Christmas and Easter dinners.  My husband said that this was the same for him, and this box of good silverware was only opened for big family dinners.

The sweetness of our grandparent's good flatware is that it was most likely bought with coupons clipped from General Mills boxes and bought one fork or spoon at a time through the mail. Betty Crocker catalogs offered a chance for everyday housewives to collect Oneida Community flatware at a price that was affordable, often at deep discounts when the coupons were used.  The catalog offered a cash price as well. Very few would have used the cash price offers, since the items would cost more than if bought at a department store.

A little research uncovered that one of the flatware patterns was popular in the late 1970s and discontinued in 1982.  The other pattern was produced from 1983-1988, with its height of popularity in 1983 and 1984. This falls into line with my husband's memories of family dinners with his grandparents and using the good silverware.

Both contain complete place settings for 12, with an assortment of accompanying hostess utensils, including strange, flat, pierced ovals that we later identified as solid jelly spoons. I have no clue what that means but they are adorably weird and apparently quite necessary in the 1970s and 80s.

I think about my own impatience of waiting, wanting and wishing and I am humbled to realize that even at this stage in my life I don't truly understand what our grandparents went through during depression era childhoods.  We aren't compelled to rinse out our paper towels and hang them to dry, and we don't pull foil out of the trash to wash and reuse. We don't clip coupons to collect our good silverware one piece at a time over months and possibly years.

It appears that I'm still learning lessons from our grandparents even though they've been gone for quite a while. And while I can't bring myself to rinse out the paper towels, perhaps I can stop worrying on what we've given up in this drastic lifestyle change and start looking forward to the little things--like our grandmothers looked forward to mail order forks bought with coupons.

Its a small step.