Member-only story
A Small Mystery in a Small Silver Spoon
A tiny bit of New England History
I inherited my paternal grandmother’s silver. That it went to me rather than to one of my older sisters or one of my cousins was only because my wife and I had taken over family Thanksgiving dinners when our family was just beginning. My grandmother wanted that dinner with the large plates and the real silver place settings that had the family tradition for years, so she gave them to us.
My daughter has all of that now. As she has no children, someday she will turn all it over to one of the cousins on another side of family.
Most of the pieces are engraved “McD” (for McDewell), which implies that it was my grandmother’s parents silver. Frederick R. S. McDewell (1863 Boston — 1939) married Adelaide Isabelle Crowell on Sep 11, 1888. The pattern dates on some pieces is 1892 and the rest is 1905, so they bought it well into the marriage. My grandmother was born in 1889 and married in 1911, so they purchased some of it not long before their daughter started her own family. I do not know when they gave it to her.
