Heirlooms

The prompt for Week #6 of "52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy" is Family Heirlooms:  For which family heirloom are you most thankful? How did you acquire this treasure and what does it mean to you and your family? A lot of the following is redundant from previous posts, but I've never posted pictures of the actual glassware, and I really can't talk about these two ladies enough!

The beautiful Rosepoint design from the Cambridge Glass Company

When I graduated with my degree in Family History, my sweet grandmother gave me a beautiful set of crystalware that was a wedding gift to her from her mother-in-law, Goldie Agatha Myers Rhinehart Bonnell. Goldie worked for the Cambridge Glass Company working on the beautiful Rosepoint design. When grandma married Gene Rhinehart, my grandfather, Goldie gave her a beautiful set of the Rosepoint crystal. Goldie didn't have an easy life, but she was fiercely dedicated to her children and is one of my favorite people that ever walked the earth. She was never a wealthy woman, but she created this beautiful depression-era glassware and shared it with her new daughter-in-law, who she accepted with open arms into her family.

I had done my undergraduate research on the Rhinehart and Myers families, and Grandma was my moral support, laundress, and cab driver while I was at college, and a window into the world of my grandfather and his family. She introduced me to Patricia Rhinehart Kennon, my grandpa's last living sibling, told me stories about the family and their personalities, and provided a wonderful collection of photos and memories.  She regularly drove down to Provo, picked me up with my laundry, drove me to the Family History Library in Salt Lake, went home to do my laundry, then came back to pick me up and take me back to Provo. She listened to me talk about my research, sometimes sat for hours in a chair next to me while I cranked the microfilm reader handle, and continues to be one of my best friends and my personal cheerleader at the young age of 91.

Detail of the Rosepoint design that my great-grandmother Goldie etched by hand

So this beautiful crystal is a connection to my great-grandmother, Goldie, who I've come to love and adore and feel close to, even though I've never met her (if you've done any genealogy at all, you know exactly what I'm talking about), and it is a physical reminder of my sweet grandmother and all that she has done and continues to do for me.