Several years ago, my Grandma gave me a drink of water when I was at her house. I was probably working in her flowerbeds. She gave me an old glass that she called the "snuff" glass. She went on to explain that it was her mama or grandma's ( I wish I could remember!) snuff glass. What I thought she meant was that she spit in it as she dipped snuff. Gross! Then Grandma said, "No, it came in this glass with a lid. Oh...not quite so bad, I guess. I really couldn't imagine snuff being sold in a glass like that! Anyway, she asked me if I would like to have it, and of course I acted delighted. I've kept it in my kitchen cabinet and used it as a juice glass and always thought of the story when I used it...although I wasn't really convinced of the snuff glass story. But one of my kids still refuses to drink from it!!!
Recently I was in Denton Texas and my husband and I were just killing time in their square downtown. They have one really huge junk/antique store that was fun to look around in, and while there I saw another snuff glass just like mine! Only this one had a lid on it. Would you believe that story Grandma told me was absolutely true??? I couldn't pass it up, I had to buy it. Now I have a matched pair - one with the original snuff lid.
Of course you can't get something like that without doing a little research - I wanted to make sure I didn't have something extremely rare and valuable :) Nope, worth about $7... but it means something to me. What I found out was that many women in the southern United States dipped snuff from the mid 19th century! It was very much a social practice and so that relieved me to know that my Great Grandmother or Great-great wasn't as crude as I thought at first.
Anyway, I was excited to confirm this story from my Grandma!
5 comments:
love that story. So fun to think about how they lived. What a nice find! :)
My Great Grandma lived to be 101 and dipped snuff until the day she died. My brother and I used to love spying on her as she enjoyed her secret little 'habit.' Hard to keep that habit a secret when you're 100 and drop your snuff jar every time you're in the bathroom. :) Good (but gross) memories!
Fun research and interesting heirloom!
I had no idea...that's a great story.
Great story. I have stories I need to write down or I might forget who did what.
Post a Comment