WWII and How Uncle Bruce Always Ends Up with All the Good Dishes
To explain ways our tables have changed in our lifetimes I can use the story of Uncle Bruce and how it is he ended up with all the good china.
Before world war II it was just understood that, except for a select few, that the oldest daughter would receive a number of family heirlooms the most important of which being a family set of china. Following World War II large numbers and new kinds of retail palaces exploded like land mines in the new suburban landscape. With them the bridal registry grew to become no longer just a ritual like a debutant ball or Junior League initiation reserved to the elite classes but the brass ring to be grabbed by every bride to be.
By the mid 1950s the young brides were expected to register and get new dinnerware. In the age of a war-winning, economy-booming, land of the conquerors, traditional styles were considered part of the mess that was ‘old Europe’… a mess that ‘we’ had just cleaned up. She felt it was not only her right, more HER DUTY, as the conqueror’s bride, to have her own and start a new, more superior, expression of where the world was going and how she, her husband and their 2.4 children were going to take it there. Supplied by a re-tooled domestic production machine and a conquered Japan Mid-Century modern was in full swing.
The Author’s Mother’s set from 1956. Wentworth China, Silver Wheat pattern, Eterne shape. Made in Japan.
Bruce’s mom Elaine was no exception. For Elaine the discomfort and embarrassment of living with flowery, gilded, or scalloped dinnerware in the age of mid-century sophistication overpowered any impulse to honor mothball-laced memories unpacked from a Lane cedar chest. During that period the modern bride wouldn’t have it if it were given to her. Bruce made off with Grandma Irene’s Limoges. They were always close.
The Author’s Mother’s mid-century dining room from 1957.
Approaching the 1970s, frightened by the socialist direction Modernism seemed to some to have taken the country …with all that Civil Rights movement and such, white Americans, on whom the consumer economy was still focused, found themselves shifting from modern and more drawn to homey traditional times…back when white people were more clearly in charge. Mid-century glass and stainless commercial buildings were renovated using wrought iron coach lamps and mansard roofs. The country saw a huge resurgence of interest in antiques. During the late 70s and 80s fighting over Grandma’s stuff, especially her china, became a contact sport. Bruce’s sister Charlene was right there with them in helmet-hair and puffy-shouldered small-print armor fighting sisters and cousins for anything she could get. Charlene left bitter that she only ended up with a few scraps of Grandma’s depression glass. Bruce, already sitting on Grandma’s Limoges, laid low, happy to make off with that Russell Wright stuff his mom had started letting the dog eat off of just before she passed.
By the mid 1980s the dinnerware and fine china manufacturers had caught on that they might stop the bloodshed in this hand-to-hand combat amongst daughters and granddaughters and sell some stuff by producing fine china and casual dinnerware that had all the same bells and whistles as those historical artifacts and then some. New Antiques were everywhere…think Nancy Regan. Kirk Stieff’s Williamsburg Reproductions, Pfalzgraff’s Yorktown and others became some of the best-selling patterns of all time. Scarcely was there a more exuberant, gilded, or decorated plate made during grandma’s time than some of the over-the-top historical patterns made by the leading fine china manufacturers from the mid ‘70s to early ‘80s. The world became awash with trickle-down traditions. When Charlene got married she registered for a lovely traditional Burgundy and Navy pattern with a gold rim. It was truly a pre-engineered heirloom … ready to pass on. The feuds over family antiques stopped and everyone was happy. Bruce walked away quietly with the rest of the Fiesta Ware.
(His sister Charlene didn’t want it… all that color. That chartreuse just didn’t work with the maroon plaid wallpaper and if it didn’t have a goose on it with a blue bow around its neck she wasn’t having it. Though she could really use a CrockPot. She had heard that there were amazing things you could do with a can of cream of mushroom soup.)
Unfortunately Charlene’s dream of sitting back and watching all her offspring fight over her precious fine china fell to shards. As her daughters…and Bruce… both pointed out the gold rims weren’t microwaveable, the movement to blond wood finishes had reached dining room tables and made Burgundy and Navy hard to work with. Divorces, wider travel distances between family members, and huge TVs within eyeshot of the table all made huge family gatherings much different affairs than they had been in the past. Most importantly her daughter Claire was working crazy hours and making good money. She and the boyfriend she’s been living with for 2 years are eating out nearly every meal. If she does make something to eat at home she’s using the boxed set that includes flatware and glassware all in one box that she got at TARGET. All deflated, as a last resort, Charlene offers the Burgundy and Navy with the gold rim to her brother Bruce, whose dislike of this set of dinnerware is only surpassed by his dislike of Charlene. He politely declines. For the first time Bruce bought new. He and his partner Jon bought a Philippe Stark pattern by Alessi at Bloomingdales to celebrate their 8th year together.
When Bruce’s great niece Heather announced that she and her boyfriend Ty were getting married Bruce had all kinds of ideas about what to get her. He knew down deep that she probably wouldn’t like any of them. He knew she wasn’t registered anywhere. Obviously she’s not setting up house anymore. She’s been living on her own since she was 18. She’s gone through 3 sets of dinnerware by this point. She’s not setting tables to impress anyone…a concept that Bruce can’t quite grasp. Nevertheless Bruce still held out hope that Heather might someday prefer a nice table to energy drinks and spandex.
One day Heather comes to visit and stays for dinner. Bruce asks her to reach down into the bottom of the sideboard for a pair of salad tongs that he knows is down there inside a Nambe’ serving bowl they bought in Santa Fe. OhMyGod! Bruce! She yells, hoping he can hear her over the whirr of the Cuisinart. “What the hell! These are amazing! They’re just like that set I wanted from Anthropologie!” “The Limoges? The butterflies are smaller” Jon adds from the other room “but yeah, kinda”. Jon makes his way into the kitchen and mutters something to Bruce. “I think I’ve got an idea.”
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