All Set for Dinner

Today we are having guests for Easter dinner.  As on all such special occasions, I have set the table in its “Sunday Best” –   a task which pleasures me each time I do it.  That’s because it gives me a chance to renew connections with folks near and dear to me, even though many of them are but memories, and some of them I never knew at all, though they, too, are memories – memories of a different sort.
The linen tablecloth was my grandmother’s.  It’s a bit threadbare now, but it reminds me of all the noteworthy dinners I’ve had in this old dining room over the last three-quarters of a century.  Alas, the matching napkins – each embroidered by my aunt Medora with an ornate ‘E’ for Espy – are no more.  They became so frayed that my mother finally consigned them to the rag bag some twenty years ago.
The dishes, too, belonged to my grandmother.  The set of twelve was given to her by my grandfather on the occasion of their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary in 1923.  By that time in their marriage, so I was told, seven children and numerous relatives and friends helping in the kitchen had pretty much demolished her original china,  a wedding gift from her parents.  We have only two salad plates left from that first set of white Havilland with a delicate blue flower pattern.
On this day I’m using the silverware that belonged to my mother’s older sister, Mona.  Of the three complete sets still in this house hers is the most ornate and is the most extensive. It was our family custom to begin a girl’s silver set on her twelfth birthday, giving a piece or two on each special occasion until the set was complete or she was married, whichever came first.  Presumably, the recipient would finish out the set after her marriage if need be.  Mine only got as far as four place settings; my mother’s set of eight is complete but with few extras; but Mona’s includes many special pieces.  I love to use them and, truthfully, I don’t even mind polishing them now and then.
The serving utensils belonged to a variety of relatives, some going back to my great-grandmothers on both sides of the family and several gravy ladles back into the 1760s according to the initials engraved on the handles. As for the serving dishes – each has a story, as well.  The crystal water goblets belonged to my parents –wedding gifts from his parents in 1934.  I think there were eight, originally.  Now there are only six.  The hobnail sherbet glasses, too, were theirs.   They were always filled with either an ice or with shrimp cocktails, and so it is even now.  Today it will be shrimp.
And then there are the crocheted chickens under the floral center piece.  In 1974 my parents and I stayed at a gasthaus in Heidelberg and our morning eggs were served encased in little chicken cozies.  My mother loved them and arranged, via sign-language and her rusty college German, to purchase six of them.   Part of the negotiated terms – we stayed for an extra two days while they were being made to order!
Even the old oak dining room table holds memories.  In fact, my first clear recollection of being in this family house is of standing beneath the table looking up at its underside.  It was 1938 and I was two-and-a-half; I think I was playing hide-and-go-seek with my six-year-old cousin Charles.
So many pleasant memories!  It takes me a long time to set the table…