Seeing Colors.......

Ramma was always special to me. I took a liking to her immediately the first time I showed up at her 80th birthday party and Kyle's family made me put on a green shirt that read, "Ramma-80 Years of Excellence". She was jolly and friendly and had a little sparkle in her eye. That was in 1997 when we were young, carefree. Life was as it should be. When we lost Kyle's parents the following year, Ramma would be my closest tie to Kyle's mother and for the next 12 years, I asked her lots of things about his family. And she remembered everything. I do mean everything. Things I might need to remember for my kids. Things I would never get the chance to ask his mom. And a little part of me fell in love with her because she reminded me of my great-grandmother, Laura Owens. Something about her face and hair looked like Granny. And she had sass like her. This was my great granny that took me fishing and let me eat her twinkies and drink her caffeine free Diet Dr.Pepper.

So when Ramma passed away this past fall, I told Kyle's aunt that I loved Ramma's Fiestaware and to please tell me first if they were going to sell it. You see, I have a love affair with Fiestaware. My mother got me started on it when I was in jr.high. Why as a kid, I was interested in old dishes, I'll never know. Maybe it was all the colors. I just loved it. I had so much of it when I got married, I didn't even register for dishes, just my china pattern. I have so much of the "new" Fiestaware that Kyle told me we have no more room in the kitchen for anymore! So the day that Kyle brought home a sack of dishes from Morton that Aunt Mimi had labeled just for me, I cried. They saved it for me. I really did cry! They were Ramma's dishes and they gave them to me, no questions asked.

So this is Ramma's Fiestaware. It is now in Kyle's mother's china hutch, snuggled right in the middle. And I love to look at it! Ramma told me that she got the pieces in the 1930's from the grocery store coupons. Remember when you could get coupons for dishes when you purchased groceries? I vaguely remember seeing some sort of Corning Ware dishes in the grocery store when I was growing up-I assume this was along those lines of the coupon thing. Anyways, they are old-antiques.

The reddish colors of Fiestaware were made with uranium and I think maybe you're not supposed to eat off those because they are radioactive? Evidently only ten years or so around the 1930's used natural uranium in the paint because the government confiscated the stockpiles of uranium after finding out it could be used to make atomic bombs around WWII. Uranium or not, it didn't hurt Ramma, though, because she kept an old Fiestaware pitcher in her refrigerator filled with water for a long, long time, and she live to be 92!

The colors are fantastic! This is my favorite blue.

Demitasse cups-so dainty.

This is possibly a Turf green or John Deere Green which was produced in the 1950's or 1960's. This is not part of the original collection, so I'm not sure where he came from. He's the little odd-man-out cup.

Sugar bowl with missing lid. Could one of Ramma's six children possibly have broken the top to this sugar bowl???

This is a treasure to me and I am so happy to have it. Never will I walk by it without thinking of sweet Ramma.

Oh, and by the way, I asked Aunt Mimi about the Fiestaware pitcher that Ramma kept in the refrigerator. It had been there since I met Kyle and no telling how long before that. Aunt Mimi said that they couldn't find it. It had disappeared. Now, my mind logically tells me that Ramma dropped it one night while getting her a drink or it cracked in the sink being washed. But my heart tells me differently.

I want to believe it just vanished into thin air. Maybe like magic. I think she took it with her. She always had a sparkle in her eye...........