WEDDING GIFTS THAT KEEP ON KEEPING ON

3/10/2017

As I made a cake for our daughter-in-law Allison this morning, it occurred that the bowl and mixer are both wedding gifts. A couple years ago I saw a bowl just like mine in an antiques store. Yikes!

Still doing their thing is this set of measuring spoons, compliments of Barb Kaufman who is still going strong and spreading sweetness in little Brownsville, Indiana.

This morning I set out to make our daughter-in-law Allison a birthday cake for our little family gathering this evening. I asked if she wanted to go out, order in or I’d make a homemade meal of her choice.

She chose the homemade meal, so a chunk of today is spent in the kitchen where chicken and noodles, baked sour-cream mashed potatoes and green beans are on the menu. For dessert, it's confetti cake with choice of locally made Good’s vanilla or cookie dough ice cream.

I’m also putting together a game (with prizes), and we are all excited because along with the kids coming in, we have a special guest, Brian’s brother, Steve.

The kids adore their uncle and we are fortunate it all came together like this because he’s visiting in preparation for his day in Indy tomorrow at a Kiwanis conference.

So while using the hand mixer on the birthday cake, I realized that the mixer and the batter bowl were both wedding gifts going on 39 years ago.

In fact, it was Steve and Linda who bought us the mixer, and the yellow speckled bowl was a bridal-shower gift from the late Cleo Winters, a lady who was the matriarch of the Brownsville United Methodist Church in all my growing-up years. A couple of years ago I was stunned to see a bowl exactly like it for sale in a store -- an antiques store! Nothing makes a woman feel as old as seeing one of her wedding gifts in an antiques store.

I’ve thought for years that surely the little motor in that Harvest Gold-hued mixer will give out and I even thought of what color I’d replace it with if I found a sale on a KitchenAid. I suppose I could anyway, but the frugal side of me says, “Nope, not until the first one dies.”

I grew up in a family where you used it up, patched it up or made do without. The mixer works great as is! Now that it's been around this long, I'm pulling for it to go the distance.

If I follow my mother’s example, the wedding mixer will be the only one I ever need. Mom had a hand mixer that she got for a wedding gift herself.

I started thinking about other wedding gifts still in use around the Cronk home. There’s a set of measuring spoons that came with measuring cups on a little wooden holder from Barb Kaufman of Brownsville. The church ladies on the committee for my bridal shower gave me a beautiful silver-hued serving tray with a fitted glass dish and wooden handles. Still in use!

The sheets, towels, Corelle dishes and electric skillet are no longer around. I wish I hadn’t worn out the handmade braided rug from the late Vivian Clevenger, and I wish I could find the small painting by noted Union County painter the late Gladys Rude. Those are certainly irreplaceable, one-of-a-kind gifts created by fixtures in my home community.

How about you? What wedding gifts are still in use around your home many years later?

16 Comments

Brenda Asberry

3/10/2017 12:05:07 pm

I still have the ironing board (from my first marriage ) almost 43 years ago. I still have many items from those years, maybe I no longer use the avacado green crock pot but I can't part with it my grandparents gave it to me. Lol Memories.

Donna Cronk

3/10/2017 12:18:41 pm

Yes, these things become part of the fabric of our lives. Avacado green and harvest gold ... those were THE colors when I got married in the 1970s. What was the name of the brown appliances? That was another popular color back in the day.

Mary Malone

3/10/2017 12:23:50 pm

I have been married almost 44 years. I still have a wide variety of things from our wedding including a blender, several sets of Corelle mixing bowels, glasses, 3 silver trays, a wooden bread box, sheets, towels, electric skillet (apple green) and a new electric skillet (44 years old, never used), silverware, Tupperware and serving utensils. I also have my wedding dress, gloves and ring pillow. Now that is a lot of really old things.

3/11/2017 03:34:00 pm

How cool is that, Mary, that you still have a new electric skillet that's never been used and is 44 years old! Pretty neat!

Susan Miller

3/10/2017 01:45:16 pm

I think the brown was called coppertone

3/11/2017 03:35:36 pm

We had a built-in oven in "coppertone" that we used for nine years from 1989 on in a house we owned. Still worked great when we left there.

Susan Carey

3/10/2017 05:07:57 pm

Betty Crocker's "New Picture Cook Book" that now is 48 years old! Both, the front and back covers gone! I luckily ran into another copy in immaculate condition at a Hagerstown used book store a out 15 years ago!!!

3/11/2017 03:37:02 pm

Re: the immaculate cookbook find: Just like being a newlywed and newbie cook again, right?

Terry Gray link

3/11/2017 05:25:14 am

Gladys Rude was, I believe, the mother of my late Aunt Roselyn Rude House. I know we've talked about it before...but I'm always amazed at how small the world is and how we are all connected! I too am still using many of my wedding gifts...things were made to last back then! And frugality was the norm, not the throw-away culture that our children are used to. And yes, I guess we are getting to be antique little girls ourselves...ha ha! Or, as a friend reminded me, little girls with glitter! :)

3/11/2017 03:40:13 pm

Yes, Gladys was Roselyn's mother. About a decade ago, long before I did the public-speaking thing with these books or with anything, Roselyn contacted me and asked me to speak at the Brownsville Alumni Association banquet. I agreed to do it and it was great fun. My family attended the Brownsville School and I made the cut as an alumni ... attending for kindergarten before consolidations and later closing the school changed everything. I've always treasured that I got to attend there, even for so brief a time.

Sandy Beard

3/11/2017 06:29:04 am

I have the same measuring spoons and wooden holder. I am guessing they came from Hahn's in Liberty. I am still using many wedding gifts also. Celebrating 40years in June.

3/11/2017 03:41:56 pm

Sandy,
Hahn's? That is great. My mom used to buy all her shower gifts for people there. She bought them colorful candy dishes. In fact, she was probably in there buying a candy dish the day JFK was killed. We were in there and heard it on the radio in the store.

Debbie M. link

3/12/2017 08:04:18 am

Donna, For our wedding, my parents gave us a china set. As a result, many of our friends and family added to that set with additional pieces and matching silverware. I have not used that gift very often, but I did take it out for my (now) daughter-in-law's bridal shower that I hosted. I hope to take that wedding gift out more often to celebrate more family special memories!

3/12/2017 01:22:50 pm

I'm sure your china represents special memories and people in your lives and even more to come as the years unfold. Enjoy.

Lillian link

5/19/2017 07:07:10 pm

It is great to have electric skillet.
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Thank's very much!

shahzad awan link

10/13/2019 06:26:47 am

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