Grandma’s Pearls
Grandma’s Pearls
(Webb Family photo)
Mary Elizabeth Richardson Kirchgessner poses with her young daughter, Mary Christina Kirchgessner in an undated family photo. Mary Christina Kirchgessner is the mother of my wife, Patty Hall.
Grandma’s Pearls
There are heirlooms that are given to younger generations and the items are sometimes not as important as the story behind them, for this is what really creates the sentimental value of these items.
This is a story from my wife’s family about a simple string of pearls that were worn by her grandmother. In 1934 this country was in the middle of the Great Depression after the Stocks Markets sank in 1929. The economy reached bottom in the winter of 1932–33. In 1935 there was a start of improvement in the country. It was between early 1934 or 1935 that Mary Elizabeth Richardson Kirchgessner, my wife’s grandmother, purchased a string of pearls in St. Paul, Minnesota. They were not considered a necessity and were probably more of a luxury. The next four years there was a period of rapid growth when the Recession of 1937 brought back 1934 levels of unemployment.
By 1937, my wife’s mother, Mary Christina Kirchgessner, was 15, and eventually was given the string of pearls. She cherished them, and later married my wife’s father. Gene Roderick Webb. They raised their children: my wife and four other siblings. The Webb couple worked hard and eventually they retired to a community in Arizona. Downsizing meant dealing with many items. My wife was charged to keep the pearls. We came back from Texas in 2007 for new jobs and to help the family with Gene’s Alzheimer’s complications, and he passed away in March 2008. Approaching her 90th birthday, Mary Christina Kirchgessner also passed away this year. By then, one of Patty’s sister’s was gone, too.
In 2008, as Christmas presents, the strands of pearls were transformed by my wife into other necklaces, earrings and bracelets for all the female children, grand children and great grand children around at the time, each with their style preference and each with a piece of a family heirloom. The pearls were real, and may not have been the best quality. It was the best Mary Elizabeth Richardson Kirchgessner could afford at the time, and she started a legacy divided among her descendents that will be passed on to generations to come.
View the poem, “The Only Gift” by clicking here.
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