One activity I loved doing with my Grandma Goldie was going through her jewelry box. She knew where each piece of her jewelry had come from, and she told me the stories that went with each piece as we searched through the box. I never tired of looking at each item or hearing the stories about the original owners or the person who had given a piece to Grandma.
One of my favorite pieces of jewelry was her mother’s engagement ring. It was a gold ring with a delicate scroll design on the top and a chip diamond in the center.I loved it. On my twelfth birthday, the year Grandma moved back to Davis, she presented me with a small white box with a beautiful red ribbon.
“What is it Grandma?”
“It’s your birthday present, Honey; go ahead and open it.”
I carefully removed the ribbon and slowly opened the lid. There, inside the box, on a piece of fluffy white cotton, lay my great grandma’s engagement ring. Nothing could have made me happier. But I said, “Oh, Grandma, how can you part with it?”
“My mother would be very happy to know that her great granddaughter loved and treasured her ring and wore it every day, just as she had done.”
Tears of happiness welled up in my eyes and I threw my arms around Grandma, gave her a great big hug and kiss, and promised to wear the ring proudly ever day of my life.
I still wear that ring, right above my wedding ring, to this very day. I did have to remove it briefly when I was eighteen because the band had grown very thin. Grandma took the ring to the jeweler to have Great Grandma’s wedding band soldered onto the engagement ring to reinforce it. The ring is a treasure that makes me feel directly connected, not only to my dearest Grandma Goldie, but to a great grandmother I never had the pleasure of knowing.
Grandma Goldie had several diamond jewelry pieces that Grandpa Irving had given her; my next story will tell where those diamonds traveled.
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