Category Archives: Family Items

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Category Archives: Family Items

Sheldon W. Peavey (1938-2010)

My dad passed away on February 23rd at the age of 71. He battled pulmonary fibrosis and fought the disease with courage and faith. He never smoked and never touched a drop of alcohol. These are two things on a short list of things he didn’t like. Here are a few things he did like: Johnny Cash and Hank [...]
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NASCO China set (USA)

I’m having a hard time finding anything about the NASCO company. If you know please send a comment and I’ll post it. In the meantime, here’s how this set ended up in the family. It was most likely the 1940s and Bendikte Olsen and her daughter Helen went to a neighborhood social in Brooklyn, [...]
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Patches from the 1970s

Patch or badge collecting is called scutelliphily. In Latin ’scutellus’ means ‘little shield.’ ‘Phileein’ in Greek means ‘to love.’ Scutelliphily is a hobby world-wide and goes back hundreds of years. In fact, Geoffrey Chaucer mentions pilgrims and the various badges they acquired in his classic work Canterbury Tales. The patches in this posting were aquired almost 600 [...]
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Sessions Mantel Clock

As the year winds down, I thought it appropriate to write about this clock. It was made by the Sessions Clock Company in Forestville, Connecticut. The Sessions Clock Company has a long and sometimes confusing history, so let me tick off some of its more interesting facts: 1 – Opened for business in 1831 as the Barns [...]
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Charlie McCarthy ‘The Detective’ Spoon

Seventy years ago this month The Detective hit the silver screen. This comic caper starred Edgar Bergen and his wise-cracking sidekick (both literally and figuratively) Charlie McCarthy. To commemorate the film’s release a silver plated spoon came out. As you can see the spoon has McCarthy dressed like Sherlock Holmes. This spoon originally belonged to my [...]
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Lane Cedar Hope Chest

The Lane Cedar Chest is perhaps one of the most hand-me-down items from the 20th century. And deservedly so! The chest is functional, beautiful, and well crafted. AND it comes with “Moth Free Insurance” for your woolens and linens! Edward Hudson Lane founded the Lane Company in Altavista, Virginia, in 1912. The company got a big boost during [...]
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Souvenir playing cards of Boston c. 1900s

I wonder where my relative bought these playing cards? Could it have been a souvenir shop in Boston around 1910 or so? These cards are from a relative on my dad’s side of the family. They were all New Englanders, but somewhere along the way someone must have purchased this deck in or around Boston. The cards [...]
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George Nelson ball clock

Time never looked so good as it does in my kitchen. That’s where I have this clock displayed. It’s known as a ball clock and it was designed by George Nelson (1908-1986). He was an architect and designer and is regarded as one of the founding fathers of American modernism. “Form plus function” was the [...]
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