January 2021

Dear Eunice,

There’s something about the end of one year and the beginning of another to make me pause and reflect. The older I get those thoughts are often anchored in the distant past. The minutia floating around in my brain is amazing. For example, this morning my eyes happened to rest on this old soap dish, and it triggered all sorts of memories.

I thought about the various brands of soaps that rested there. In the 1920’s was it Palmolive or maybe Ivory? It was without a doubt whatever was the cheapest because the soap dish prevailed through the depression and on into the next millennium. I wonder how it lasted through the years as it is not particularly pretty, but it does have utility. It is not china, it isn’t depression glass, it isn’t made of anything I would say is a precious collectible material. I’m not even sure what it is. It looks like a fine porcelain, and has a sort of classical look in white with a blue lip. The legs are white bumps protruding from the base. It screams useful.

The original owners of this classic were my grandparents. They separated and then divorced so the the original depository of the dish — the farm — was sold. Mom says that the contents of the farm were boxed up and for a time stored at the neighbors’ house. It wasn’t long before those personal items were lost when the house they were stored in burned down. How did the soap dish survive…