This tin showed up at my mom’s house when I was a teenager. It sat on a small coffee table in my mom’s living room. She kept some orange and yellow artificial flowers in it and leaned the top against the side of the opened tin.
The Biscuit Tin, about 3.5 inches tall with a 4-inch diameter
I didn’t think much about it for years. I thought it was just something she’d seen somewhere and liked it, or someone had given it to her.
I don’t remember when the subject of its origin came up, but I’m glad it did.
The tin was my maternal grandfather’s biscuit tin. He was a farmer, so he was out in the fields from sun-up nearly to sundown. He needed a snack to carry him between breakfast and dinner, and again between dinner and supper.
Everyday my grandmother packed a snack into the tin, and my grandfather carried it off with him to the fields. She packed a second snack into it before he headed back out after dinner.
Daniel and Florrie Martin, my maternal grandparents
My mom said one of the things he carried was a biscuit with jelly. I’m sure that was tasty because my grandma made awesome jelly.
Where had it been?
Where was the tin before it showed up when I was a teenager, you might wonder. My mom said that one of her brother’s had it for years, and when he passed away the tin made its way to my mom. When my mom passed away many years later, it came to live with me.
Copyright © 2017 Nancy H. Vest All Rights Reserved
Lovely story! I love keeping items that help contain and preserve family memories.:-)
I do, too, Diane. I have a house full of them from mine and my husband’s family.
Heart-warming story. You’ve inspired me to write about some items I have from “back in the day”.
I’m glad I inspired you to do that, Denise. My mother-in-law inspired me. She’s written about most every heirloom in her house so we wouldn’t be left wondering about them. Thanks for commenting.
What a lovely story to accompany that cute tin! It is definitely a keeper and a family heirloom… especially since it has a story now. Maybe you might print your story and keep rolled up in the tin.
Great idea, Jeanne! I’ll do that today! I need to print out other heirloom stories and put them with the pieces, too.
How fortunate that you got the tin’s origins story. Otherwise, you would have never known and may have parted ways with it and, unwittingly, a bit of your family history.
So true, Michael. I only wish I’d started asking questions sooner. I missed so many stories about things and people. I think every genealogist/family historian feels like that. If we’d only known how important it would be to us later.
How large is the tin. There is nothing in the photograph that really gives me an idea of its size, and I am curious. Thanks.
Janice, I put the size in the alternate data for the photo itself but not in the blog post. Thanks for noticing that. 🙂 It measures about 3.5 inches tall with a diameter of about 4 inches. I had updated the blog post with that info, too.