There was a large farm sale shortly after mom and dad were married. They needed a cupboard for the kitchen to store supplies in so they decided to go. Mom’s maternal grandmother asked to go with them so she rode along. They looked around the furniture items and found a pie-safe and a cupboard or two they thought they could use. When the sale begun they were able to get two practical pieces and were ready to leave when gramma Bovier spied a beautiful hutch. It had four doors on it……the top two had glass fronts and the bottom two were wood fronts. Over the top was a pretty scalloped and scrolled piece that made a nice finish to it. My mother loved it but said nothing. Gramma made an excuse to stay longer and when the hutch came up for bid she bought it. Of course, she gave it to mom and dad and said it was their wedding present.

It went to the Boston farm with mom and dad. Then it went to my maternal grandmother’s attic when mom and dad moved to the Andersen farm. It rested in the attic until I grew up and married. Mom told me about it and I asked if I could have it……and so it was freed from gramma’s attic and taken to Shawnee, Kansas. I put my “good” dishes in it….Franciscan Apple dishes that I bought piece by piece and dearly loved.

Later when we moved to Smalltown, Missouri it was stored in our garage because we retired in a mobile home. The piece was simply too large to fit in any room. When Becky married Hank she enjoyed it for several years in their home but when the divorce happened it was moved back to our garage. Some years later, John and Barbara married and eventually bought a home with large rooms. It was time to ask if they would like to have the old hutch. They got it as far as Vicksburg, MS. where Barb’s dad would have it refinished. It was there for some time before being ready to travel on to Covington, LA. to finally end up with the youngest great-great-grandchild of gramma Bovier.

The next visit we made from Smalltown to Covington we got to see the finished product. There on a wall as the single focal point stood the old hutch. Inside were the Franciscan Apple dishes looking quite at home as they had many years ago in Shawnee. The sweetest part was when John opened the bottom door to show me a piece of a metal tobacco can that had been cut and nailed to the far corner of the hutch. Dad had designed the project to keep out a mouse way back there on the Boston farm. I was so happy to see that the man who refinished the hutch had the heart to leave it in tact……………some things are just not meant to be fixed………

Until tomorrow when we return to the story of my dad..

Essentially Esther