Christmas Memories of Irene Mousley: Miniature Flatware

One year my cousin, Myrtle Jones, who was a year or two younger than me, and her Mom and brother spent Christmas with us.  All I recall of that Christmas morning was when Myrtle and I walked into the living room where our stockings were hung on the back of a chair, and a few presents were on the seat of the chair.  I must have been slightly ahead of her and reached the chair first.  I saw what I wanted and believed to be mine, a set of miniature knives, forks and spoons, and reached out to snatch them.  The memory is of poor dear Mother, clawing the wonderful present out of my hands saying, softly, that this was meant for Myrtle. 

How could Santa have made such a dreadful mistake?  I was heart broken for at least ten seconds and cannot recall anything more of that Christmas—only the brief and tragic scene lives on in my memory.  

I told this little story to my daughters, and years later Lani found and purchased a miniature set of knives, forks and spoons in their own little container and gave them to me, in memory.


By (Myrtle) Irene Mousley, daughter of Nathan Cram Tenney and Myrtle Payne