Memories of my mom came to me today.  And memories of this pitcher – not my memories, but from those who are no longer with us.  Memories that if not written down and handed on, will be forgotten forever.

This pitcher was on the table at my great-grandparents house at every meal.  Mom loved spending time with her maternal grandparents – Robert E. Lee and Frances Barber Linton Montgomery.  They lived on a dairy farm and owned a large home – with two staircases – one in the front of the house for the girls to use to go up to their bedrooms at night, and one in the kitchen for the boys.  Evidently this was not unusual in those days.

Fresh milk was always found in this pitcher and Granddaddy Robert always poured milk in each glass for the young people in his home.  My mother adored her grandad.  She would sit out on the porch with him, for hours, watching the cars go by.  And in the 1940’s on a rural road in Washington County, they were few and far between!  She would follow him around the farm and pat him on the cheek.  But she would not drink her milk!

Whenever possible she would pour the milk out of her glass, and if there was no way around it she left her glass full.  I’m not sure how she managed this under such watchful eyes, but evidently she was well-known as anti-milk.  Her dear Aunt Lilly even told mom she would buy her a beautiful doll if she would just drink her milk.  I suppose, as any normal child, mom drank that milk until she got her doll.  Then, it was back on strike.

This pitcher became one of mom’s favorite possessions many years before her death – its home on the top shelf in her china cabinet.  She loved to show it off.  But there are serious cracks in several places and it was never used for liquids.  Now I am the keeper of the milk pitcher.  I don’t like milk either.  But I smile every time I see it.  Those lovely memories of mom being a stinker about her milk, and great-grandparents who I never met, but know quite well.  What memories do you need to write down today?