Another potluck note

I might as well stick with a theme for the week, right?

I have many inheritances from Grandma B.  She was the only child of two immigrants who were the only members of their family to leave Norway.  She was scrupulous about maintaining stories, traditions, and heirlooms.  Because of her, I have the treasure of tea towels woven from flax grown on my great-great-grandfather's farm in Norway with dainty lace knitted by the great-grandmother for whom I am named.  I am also honored to wear the same great-grandmother's engagement ring that served as my engagement ring, as well.  And because of Grandma B., I also have the Potluck Spoon.

The Potluck Spoon is not a family heirloom in the traditional sense.  It didn't live in the silver cloth, polished and protected with the other valuables.  It's an ordinary stainless steel serving spoon.  It doesn't match any pattern of flatware I have nor any that Grandma B. had, at least as far as I can recall.

But the Potluck Spoon is a treasure from a woman who knew her way around a church basement kitchen.  Once upon a time in her life, I don't know when, Grandma B. got her hands on a metal engraver.  We have evidence of this from many of her belongings.  She was that kind of woman.  So on the bowl of this ordinary serving spoon is engraved my maiden name--a fairly unusual one.  Carefully, clearly, she identified the spoon she knew she'd always be able to retrieve from the bottom of the drained sink or from the drawers in the church kitchen.

Before she died, Grandma B. moved out of her house and distributed most of the heirlooms she had been saving.  In her small retirement home apartment she kept only the necessities and the things dearest to her.  I didn't even know about the existence of the Potluck Spoon until she died, and then it was one of the few things I particularly requested as we cleared out her belongings.  A woven wall hanging from Norway, a batch of knitting needles, The Book of Concord and The Lutheran Church Basement Women's Cookbook, an orange mixing bowl, and the Potluck Spoon.  These are the last things I carried with me from Grandma B.

And I can't tell you how many times I've rescued the Potluck Spoon from the bottom of a sink or a drawer since then.