Later on Sunday evening...
Claire came over today to visit with us and Desdemona and while she was here, she and I opened all the windows to let the cool, fresh air in and chase out the old, stale air. It was so refreshing, but since the molds, pollen and ragweed are high, I got a massive headache, clogged sinuses and a sore throat. We closed the windows later on, to Desi's dismay, as she loved feeling the wind in her fur. Claire also programmed the Philips appliance she gave me--a bedside digital clock, alarm, radio that also recharges my cell phone! I had been unable to use the Kindle Fire she gave me for Christmas, so she fixed whatever it was that was wrong and showed me how to use it all over again! She left to do her weekly grocery shopping and Larry was still weeding and transplanting in the garden. I finished putting up the last items of the Fall decorations--the three orange clay pumpkins that go on the Lacock desk in the foyer, the hanging, stuffed fabric pumpkin and cat and the stuffed felt turkey that go on the armoire in the foyer, the three elaborate Fall-themed pillows that go on the sofa and love seat in the living room, and the little pumpkins that go on the window sills that flank our front door. I still need to get the candy corn that fills my two Sandwich glass, antique, heirloom cornucopias that I put on the piano. If I remember, I can pick that up tomorrow, as I also need Ivory liquid and I need to polish the sterling silver tea service and gallery tray. I polished all my sterling silver candle sticks yesterday and also polished the brass candle sticks, the antique heirloom brass candle holder that is my oldest family heirloom from the earliest days of my Mother's family. It was a wedding gift to my Great Great Grandparents, David Black Stewart and Eliza Jane Scott Stewart, and was brought by them to Dublin, Ireland from their home in Edinburgh, Scotland, perhaps as early as 1835, and then brought with them to America when they came over in 1848. The wide, smooth brass base is rounded, with a round, stand-up handle, and the glass chimney is etched all over with an exquisite filigree pattern. Mother did not remember it being used by her own Mother, but she recalled her Grandmother, Mary Emma Stewart Lacock, (Mrs. George Noble Lacock) lighting a red candle in the chimney on successive Christmas Eves between the years of 1910 and 1934 and setting it on a tall highboy in the wide central hallway of the George Noble Lacock home. When everyone was ready to go to bed, Uncle Stewart or Uncle William, her eldest son and her second eldest son, would say "Let me get the candle down for you, Mother, so the wax won't spatter." According to Mother, everything shone in that house, glowed golden. There was a great deal of cut glass, crystal, shining brass, gilt and brightly polished mahogany furniture, along with gleaming sterling silver in the rooms. Mother loved her Grandparents' house and spent a great deal of her childhood there. The year 1910 was when Uncle Stewart died of a sudden, virulent infection that overcame him and killed him swiftly, leaving his parents, his young wife and small children, his sisters and his brothers stunned and bereft. No one in the family ever recovered from Stewart's death, all the more a tragedy because he was a young, healthy, extremely active and brilliant doctor, and was a mere 34 years of age. Within two years of his death, his Father, George Noble Lacock, died of pneumonia but really he died of a broken heart caused by his son's death. George's widow, Mary Emma, lived on until 1943, and lived to see her middle and youngest sons become Doctors of Dental Surgery and Orthodontia, as well as seeing her three daughters marry and have children. When she died, the house and it's contents were divided among the remaining siblings, Georgia, Mary, Jean and Gideon. Uncle William had died earlier that year, of injuries he sustained in a car accident while he and his wife were on a car trip in Nova Scotia. His French wife, Aline DeSaix, broke her back, but she recovered. All the beautiful things my Grandmother inherited from her Mother she kept and passed on to my Mother, who then passed them on to my sister and me. Mary Louise sold all her things, but I still have all mine and cherish them. When I die, Claire and Matt will have these family things, many of which are hundreds of years old.