In the gaslit shadows of Victorian London, circa 1865, George Tinworth shaped not just clay, but wonder: a chess set of mice, each piece a hand-crafted masterpiece in fine Doulton stoneware, their features so delightful and lifelike it was as if magic clung to every curve.
This is the story—the provenance—of a fabulous fish named Tomášek and his recent journey from Ancestral Antiques to his new forever home. A brook trout, Tomášek was born in the fall of 1958 in the sparkling rivers near Nový Bor—a town in Czechoslovakia famous for its glassmaking and the renowned Exbor glassworks. To be fair, Tomášek wasn’t your average fish; he was a sparkling, hand-crafted creation with the kind of shimmer that left even the fanciest carp starstruck …
If you missed Part Five, click HERE. “July 7, 2012. Dear Denise, I know who you are and have been curious for a long time to know more about this box you describe. Millie Ladner told me about you. We corresponded about…
If you missed Part Four, click HERE. Spending time with Elizabeth’s friends brought me great joy. Besides those I had already met, I also spent time with civil rights activist and educator Nancy Feldman and writer, editor, and Oklahoma poet laureate…
If you missed Part Three, click HERE. I had quit my job. Now what? It was April 1995. Following a brief trip to visit my parents in Arizona, I spent my mornings sitting on the ground in the backyard of our…
If you missed Part Two, click HERE. It was Monday morning, and we all returned to work — Kendra and I to our jobs at a “Big 6” accounting firm where the long hours threatened to mute the magic we’d found…
It was a Saturday when the box and all of its contents came home with me.
That night, Kendra and I sorted through the pages of the album that held the Dear Little Daughter Letter and, using dates on letters and documents pasted inside, managed to put the pages back in order. It alone had so many more stories to share.
Treasures come in many forms. Of all my favorite finds, the “Dear Little Daughter Letter” is precious to me because it changed the trajectory of my life.
Written in the early 1900s, it is but one of many treasures I found in a dirty cardboard box that had been unceremoniously shoved under a dealer’s table at the local flea market.