Monday, April 22, 2013

GRANDMA'S SNUFF STORY CONFIRMED...



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:

Amy said...

love that story. So fun to think about how they lived. What a nice find! :)

Gena said...

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!

Unknown said...

Fun research and interesting heirloom!

OK Chick said...

I had no idea...that's a great story.

The 5 Arbuckle's said...

Great story. I have stories I need to write down or I might forget who did what.