"Clementine" China

 Today's feature is china that I know nothing about. I don't remember it ever being used or discussed at our house, and yet, it was in boxes that came from Mom's house.

This is the Clementine pattern of Pope Gosser china. This was made in Coshocton, Ohio. This pattern was probably made around 1957 and the company went out of business in 1958.

The fact that it dates from that late has me completely stumped as to who it belonged to. I can't imagine anyone in my family was buying china at that point. The only thing that MIGHT fit is that date is about when Granny moved from Hamilton, NY to where I lived. I suppose she might have bought new dishes, but I have no memory of using these. That said... they are pink and fancy and I wouldn't have liked them. Although I lived with Granny a fair amount of the time after she moved to my hometown, I can't pull up any recollection of what dishes we did use. I remember almost all of the dishes from home though. Staying with Granny was not in the category of my favorite things.

The point is, these are not of any special family significance.

What I seem to have is 4 dinner plates, 4 small plates, 5 small bowls, and 3 saucers. Again... no cups.

I spent some time in the building where I think the box with all the missing cups must be. No luck. But it HAS to be there.

I did manage to find all the quilts (except one that I haven't seen for 50 years, so maybe it wore out because it wasn't in great shape even then), now washed, that Granny made. They are collected into one location. I've shown you some of them. I'll go through the whole bunch on the blog once more because I've found homes for a few of them.

But, you wouldn't believe the amount of time I spent looking for the rest of the pile of quilts that I had previously cleaned and put away. I had nearly exhausted all the places I could think of for where I might have put them, but eventually I found them. Needless to say, that whole process did not improve the neatness of the house.

That said, I think I will start packing up some of the china again. With a value threshold, Replacements, Ltd, will accept dropoffs of china and flatware. I know I can easily make that cutoff because I also have a ton of family silverware that needs to go somewhere. That would be a fun road trip- to North Carolina. I think I'll start contemplating that.

While I was hunting for the cups, I did find at least one other box of stuff from Mom's house that can be sorted and gotten rid of. Yeah, it's only one box, but one box at a time is better than nothing.

I also made an initial contact with the museum where some family items are going to go.

I get pats on the head for a day of progress on this hopeless sorting project even if not much actual progress was made.

See Gascow Rose Tea Set

Spirit of the Woods Hike - November 2026

 Today was the monthly Spirit of the Woods Chapter Hike. We had a great turnout with 27 people and 5 dogs in the picture. I think two more people and 2 more dogs arrived just after it was taken.

In order to reach a nice location on a group hike, we started at a road crossing that isn't really a trailhead, but it doesn't get much traffic, so it wasn't a problem to park along the road.

The good destination was McCarthy Lake, one of my favorite of the local trail places. Most of the leaves came down with this week's rain, but there was still some good color there.

A new small bridge on this section.

We were glad it's late enough in the season that this wasp nest wasn't active. It wasn't very high above the trail at all.

After the hike, quite a few of the people went to President Dan's cottage for a finger-food lunch. Yum. I took the picture before all the food arrived. If anyone went home hungry it was their own fault!

Our chapter has a very exciting opportunity coming up in 2027. I won't say more about it just yet, but I spent just a few minutes sharing with the group, and their response was positive. Stay tuned!

As almost all our chapter hikes, it was an out-and-back, so people can make the hike as long or short as they want. Some of us went out 3 miles and then back. One person recovering from medical issues did 1.2 miles and was very pleased at being able to do that much. How far one hikes has nothing to do with "success."

Miles walked in 2026: 672
2026 miles hiked on NCT: 134.2

North Country Trail, Lake County, MI. 3-Mile Rd, south for 3.1 miles and back for a total of 6.2.

See SPW Hike Sept 2026

Sylvan Scouting

 Today, five people went out to scout a possible route to get a piece of the North Country Trail off road. This is near where we scouted last year (link at end), but not connected to that.

That piece is currently in a holding pattern while landowners are being contacted - at least that is being attempted. So far, there hasn't been much success.

This piece has a much better chance of happening. The man in the gray jacket and hat is going to grant an easement for us to get onto Forest Service property. This will eliminate about 3/4 mile of roadwalk.

Yes, the NCTA people have their noses buried in electronics. We were trying to take good tracks and mark waypoints of interest in terms of finding the best route through the area.

Here, Kurt and Kenny are checking out the property corner post. Kurt is a chapter member who lives in the neighborhood and he's been making a lot of the contacts including the one that has led to this easement. Kenny is the NCTA staff member (Michigan Regional Trail Coordinator) who will help orchestrate all the administrative pieces of the puzzle.

And why is it "Sylvan Scouting?" Sylvan means "woods," and we were in the woods (Penn- sylvania = Penn's woods). But the real reason is that the biggest issue with this route is that the trail will need to cross Sylvan Creek. It's a little bigger than we expected, and in the spring, the accompanying wetlands will be much wider.

Here's where the deer cross it.

Don't hold your breath. The Forest Service will have to do a NEPA study. They are probably the ones who will choose where the bridge will be, and it will need to be large enough that it must be engineered. Depending on what a scouting hike in the spring shows, there are wetlands that will have to at least have puncheon if not raised boardwalk. Lots of hummocky areas make that clear.

But once across the creek the land rises and should be high and dry to get back out to the next road.

We collected valuable information, and this is the first step.

In other news: I went to the store yet again, and did some other planning stuff for the trail.

Miles walked in 2026: 665.8
Bushwhacking for possible NCT route: 3 miles

See Scouting

Glascow Rose Tea Set

 This is the early 1900s tea set I mentioned. I really like this, but I definitely don't want to keep it.

This is made by Peacock Pottery in England, and (hooray, hooray!) the pattern is one of the rare ones, Glascow Rose. This is considered from the Arts and Crafts movement.

One of the cups is missing- leaving five, the teapot has been repaired and is probably not useable for hot tea, and the sugar bowl has two tight cracks. The creamer, the lids, all six saucers, and all six plates are here.

Even with the missing and damaged pieces, this is supposedly worth a fair amount of money, the pattern being in the top tier of value. I would let the entire set go for $350- either you pick up or I deliver if not TOO far away, or if I might see you in the next little while. I'm not willing to pack and ship it due to risk of damage. Apparently one cup and saucer set can sell for $70-$200.

The maker's mark is the official backstamp for Foley Art China - Peacock Pottery, produced by E. Brain & Co. at the Foley Works in Fenton, England. This specific stamp dates the production of this set precisely between 1905 and 1913

In other news: I edited, I got the Limoges china out of the way and cleaned up this set. I dealt with the other half of the basketball cabbage. I also spent some time working on genealogy. One of the collections from these boxes that I want to show you will be much more interesting if I can tie it specifically to the people to whom they belonged. I know the names, but now I can explain exactly how these people relate to me. Stay tuned. Probably not tomorrow, but soon.

See Granny's China

Granny's China

 The good news is that I have taken on getting a couple of things accomplished toward the goal of moving some things out of the house. Om is going to be gone for a few days, and doing this project is temporarily making a huge mess until I get it sorted, so I thought this would be a good time to tackle it.

The bad news is that after years of trying to get all the boxes of this collected in one place, Geez, Louise! I am still missing some of this. There has to be at least one more box somewhere because most of the cups and all the saucers are missing.

This is Theodore Haviland Limoges China in the Green Floral Schleiger design. The line was begun in 1903. Granny was married in 1906, and I'm guessing it was purchased soon thereafter, or as part of the wedding gifts.

After hearing all my friends' horror stories about getting rid of family china, I wasn't expecting to find much good news on the value front. However. These are genuine, pre WWI.

Not only that, but they are still open stock, so broken pieces can be replaced. And I'm finding good prices on even single antique place settings.

I have 12 dinner plates, 12 soup plates, a soup toureen with lid, 3 platters, sugar and creamer, gravy boat, 2 serving dishes with lids, at least 8 small soup cups, and the missing cups and saucers.

Only one cup and the creamer have any damage with slight cracks.

Here's a closeup of one of the soup plates. These are the older style soup dishes that are flatter and spread the soup out more. I've always liked that style. But these dishes are WAY too fussy for me. I already have two sets of my own tableware (none as fancy or delicate as this), and enough of my mother's china to set a table for 4, and two other settings of 4. I DO NOT WANT or need this china.

I have all of these washed and sorted. I wanted a cloth surface to put them on, so I got out one of the cutwork linen tablecloths that the same grandmother made. As I've mentioned many times, she was very talented. Also, she liked nice things.

It's one of the mysteries to me that she came from a farm background, and leapt into a lifestyle that was several steps above her roots. She married a lawyer, so I guess they could afford it. That said, many things that I'd always been told were worth money have turned out to be reproductions or not very high quality examples of whatever it was. So, I'm pretty happy if this china might actually be worth something.

But now I have a new dilemma. I need to find the rest of this to be able to do anything further with it. Since I thought I had it all collected, this could be problematic. I can't leave it all on the table indefinitely, and I really don't want to pack it away AGAIN, even though it's sorted.

And what's it sorted from? Ha! Another whole set of china, a lovely art deco tea set that I actually like, some very fancy glassware, miscellaneous family dishes that I had been wondering where they were. I'll wash the rest of that another day. But I've now emptied 7 big cartons of china and glassware into the dining room.

There actually is other news as well. I edited. I hand-washed something else. I dealt with half a basketball-size cabbage until I got sick of chopping. I'll try to finish that tomorrow.

See Emily Marguerite Fisher Rowe