Gingerbread Mantle Clock

In 2016, I shared the story of an Elgin pocket watch passed down to my husband by his uncle, Ralph Murphy. Today, I share another treasure from Uncle Ralph’s collection: a Waterbury gingerbread mantel clock.

This ornate antique clock was produced by the Waterbury Clock Company, founded in 1857 and known for its beautifully crafted timepieces. The clock features a pressed oak case with intricate carvings that resemble the decorative trim found on Victorian-era “gingerbread” houses—hence the name. It stands 22 inches tall and 15 inches wide, with a large glass panel adorned with gold stenciling that opens like a door to reveal the brass clockworks. The clock has a wind-up mechanism and chimes hourly when wound with a key.

The movement inside was manufactured by the E. Ingraham Company, another American clockmaker of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Since Waterbury and Ingraham produced their own proprietary parts, this suggests the clock was likely repaired or restored at some point. The screws also appear to be replacements.

The dial features large black Roman numerals and two winding holes—one for the time mechanism and one for the chime. It measures 5 inches in diameter. Each hour is marked with five rectangular indices, and the top of the hour is distinguished by a triangle.

A small silver ring encircling the numerals is known as a chapter ring. I noticed that the Roman numerals on the chapter ring do not align perfectly with those on the dial. We checked to see if it rotates, but it does not. Whether this misalignment is intentional or the result of a manufacturing or restoration quirk remains unclear. The chapter ring itself measures 1¼ inches in diameter.

The pendulum is 8 inches long, with 6 inches visible through the glass. Its decorative medallion measures 3 inches in length and 2½ inches wide. Fortunately, we still have the original key to wind the clock, which you can see in the bottom right corner of the photo below.

The rear label is in poor condition, but I found a matching version online that includes helpful instructions:

Directions for Setting the Clock Running and Keeping it in Order. 

The long hand is the Minute hand, and the short hand is the Hour hand.

Remove the packing wire holding the pendulum rod, and hang the ball on the rod. The beat should be equal and regular, and will be so if the clock is set in a LEVEL position.

To Set The Clock:—Always use the Minute hand (which can be turned in either direction, without injury) never turn the hour hand.

The Clock Is Regulated by means of a screw at the bottom of the Pendulum. If the Clock should go too fast, lower the ball. If too slow, raise it.

DIRECTIONS FOR A STRIKING CLOCK. 

The Clock can be made to strike to correspond with the position of the hands by carrying the minute hand forward to the figure II, then backward to the figure VIII, and back and forth between these figures until the right hour is struck.

There is some writing above the Waterbury label on the back of the clock, but it’s too faded to read.

Family heirlooms are more than objects—they’re storytellers. Uncle Ralph is no longer here to share the stories behind his clock, but I’ll always remember the day I visited his home and saw part of his cherished gingerbread clock collection. The photo below captures a portion of that display, proudly arranged in his family room.

Heirloom Christmas tree skirt

As we took our Christmas tree down last weekend, I finally remembered to take a photo of my tree skirt so it could be added to my list of heirlooms. Every year, I always think about it after my husband had already packed everything away. Since I am certain neither of my sons has a clue where the tree skirt came from, I thought it was time to document its provenance.

One of the families I grew up with in Atlanta was the Rath/Knight family. The mother, Chris, was divorced but later remarried and became Chris Knight. Her daughter Peggy was two years older than me, and her son Gary was my age. After Chris’ second marriage, she had another daughter, Katrina. Their house was on a street parallel to our backyard. The photo below was taken in early 1960 from the backside of our front yard. Their house is the one pictured in the middle, with the garage (not the one above it).

Peggy and I were friends for many years. I remember going to her house to play with her Barbie dolls. She had a nice wooden dollhouse, and Chris sewed all sorts of Barbie clothes. I never had a Barbie doll, so Peggy very kindly shared hers. In the winter months, if by chance we had any snow—which, of course, living in Atlanta, was not very often—the neighborhood kids gathered at their house because they lived at the top of a hill. Having moved there from Michigan, they had sleds, while all we had was cardboard. We took turns having someone stand at the bottom of the hill to watch for cars while everyone else sledded down.

We played card and board games and set up Gary’s Hot Wheel tracks on their driveway to watch the cars roll down the hill. At Christmas time, we made huge tissue paper flowers to decorate packages. In the summer, we put records on the record player, and Peggy and I sat in front of the windows, singing our hearts out. We read Nancy Drew and Pippi Longstocking books and hung out with the other neighborhood kids. We spent any money we earned on a Coke and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup at Davis Grocery, the mom-and-pop store next door to our house. We walked to our elementary school and went trick-or-treating together.

Chris always had no-bake chocolate peanut butter oatmeal cookies or a Crisco pound cake for a treat. And like Mama, she made different flavors of divinity candy every Christmas.

A birthday party at my house. That’s me in the back (right side)
with the white headband. Peggy is sitting on my right.

After Peggy’s high school graduation in 1972, the Knight family moved to Warrenton, Virginia, to manage the Rip Van Winkle Motel there. A little over six years later, Peggy convinced me to move to Virginia, and we were roommates for a while. I met my husband my first week in Virginia, and we married the following year. Our first home was less than 30 minutes from Chris’ house in Haymarket, Virginia. Before my children were born, I often visited Chris on weekends with Peggy, so we could work on ceramics. She had a basement full of molds and a kiln and gave us free rein to make what we wanted as long as we paid for the ceramic slip. 

One Christmas between 1980 and 1985, Chris gave me this tree skirt, which she crocheted. My husband and I have used it every Christmas since then. As you can see, the skirt is circular, 32 inches in diameter, and made with white, red, and green yarn. It is still in excellent condition, although it could probably use a good cleaning. I can safely say it has never been washed. We generally just box it back up when we take the tree down every year.

As time passed, my family dynamics changed, as did my interests, and Peggy and I eventually grew apart. Their entire family left Virginia separately by the mid-1980s, if I recall correctly. Gary visited my house a couple of times when he was in the area, but otherwise, I have not seen any of them for years. Despite this, we shared many childhood and early adult memories, and I think of this family every year when we set our Christmas tree up. 

Heirloom basket

This heirloom basket, with its timeless charm, has served dual roles in my family. It has been with us for years, and although I am not entirely certain, I believe my mother, Fay, whom we affectionately called Mama, initially used it as a bed for one or more of us five Lankford children. This would place its origin at least in the late 1940s. I don’t remember sleeping in it, but every time I look at the basket, I hear Mama’s voice in my head saying, “Y’all used to sleep in it when you were babies.” My sisters have the same memory as I do.

For many years, it held a special place on the floor of Mama’s bedroom. As we grew older, the basket found a new purpose, becoming a trusted repository for dirty clothes. When Mama moved out of our Macon Drive house in Atlanta in 1979, the basket went with her. I didn’t see it for a long time until I discovered it in a closet of the house she lived in before her death in 2022. It was one of the cherished items I brought home when we cleared out her house that year. Today, it has a special place in my bedroom, where I use it to store extra quilts and blankets.

The basket is large—19 inches by 26 inches and 10 inches deep. It is well-worn, having cradled its share of babies and dirty clothes over the years. 

Ashley’s Christmas stocking—a new family heirloom

The 52 Ancestors theme this week is “craft.”

While I don’t consider myself to be a crafty or creative person, I am able to stitch an “x” and follow a pattern, so cross-stitching is one of the few crafts I partake in. And this week’s theme came at a perfect time for me to share a project that I just finished—a Christmas stocking for my daughter-in-law Ashley.

In 1984/1985, I made a Christmas stocking for my son Chris. You can see it and read about it here. Then, after many years of guilt, I locked myself in my bedroom every day for the better part of 2018 making a Christmas stocking for my son Kevin. Chris, his wife Ashley, and Kevin all lived with my husband and I up until last month. Because of that, I didn’t want them to know I was working on the stocking, just in case I never finished it. Kevin already gave me a hard time about Chris having a handmade stocking and not him so I didn’t want to give him ammunition to give me more grief! But thank goodness I finished Kevin’s stocking and gave it to him for his birthday last year. You can see that stocking and read about it here. So now we had three stockings hanging on the wall last Christmas, two handmade and one store-bought. As I sat in my chair every night looking at them, I decided I needed to make one more. The store-bought stocking looked sad beside the handmade stockings. So, I ordered a kit, gave it to Ashley for Christmas last year, and then promptly took it back. I told her I’d try to have it ready in time to hang this Christmas, but made no promises.

I started working on Ashley’s stocking on December 30, 2018. Unlike the year before, I didn’t push myself too hard in the beginning but sometime in the spring of this year, decided it was time to get serious. That meant working on it every Saturday and Sunday morning and evening for a couple hours each, followed by a couple hours every Monday through Thursday nights. Friday nights were reserved for working on this blog and I stuck to that. I started posting progress photos on Instagram and Facebook late spring, thinking it would help motivate me, knowing other people knew I was working on it. I had to show progress, right? Since I had to stay hidden away while working on Kevin’s stocking, I got used to spreading out on my bed to work, but this time around I was able to keep the door open. Chris, Ashley, and Kevin periodically stepped in and checked my progress. Charlie and I had many conversations yelling at each other from the bedroom to the living room, especially during October when the Washington Nationals were in the playoffs and World Series!

I kept track of my progress by highlighting the x's on six tabloid sized sheets of paper.
One set was for the x's, the other set for outlining.

Close-up view of the pattern

Outlining

Knowing I was nearing the finish line in October, I bought red satin and velvet while on vacation. Once I completed stitching all the x’s, all that was left was outlining. That should have been a piece of cake, but I was wearing down and had to force myself to work on it. I outlined for one week, took a week off to refresh, then worked hard for one more week, finishing on a Wednesday in mid-November. I washed the finished piece that Thursday evening, ironed it Friday evening, and then took it to the alterations shop Saturday morning. I picked the finished project up the following Saturday morning in time to give it to Ashley when she and Chris arrived to hang the Christmas lights on the house last Saturday.

Finished product before I took it to the alterations shop for sewing

View of the back

So now all three of my kids have a personalized, handmade Christmas stocking/family heirloom. And guess what, at one point this fall, Charlie told me he wanted one too. Not sure I can commit to another year though. I’ll have to think hard about that one. Because if I make one for him, then I have to make one for myself!

Boot camp graduation, Company 1845, U.S. Navy

Two years ago, I blogged about my Daddy, Samuel Terrell Lankford—a U.S. Navy veteran. Tonight, I have an update to that post I want to share since tomorrow is Veterans Day.

Company 1845, U.S. Navy, United States Naval Training Center, Great Lakes, Illinois
(October 19, 1944 - click to enlarge)

Daddy passed away this past August and while I was home for his funeral, my brother gave me a picture I’d never seen before from Daddy’s Naval Training Center boot camp graduation in October 1944. When Michael handed the picture to me, it was rolled up tightly. When unrolled, you could see it has several cracks in it. Daddy is in the front row, 10th person from the left. Luckily, the crack that covers his body missed his face. He’s the only person I can identify in the picture.

Close-up of Samuel Terrell Lankford (center)

According to the Recruit Training Command web page, there were more than one million Sailors trained at Great Lakes between the attack on Pearl Harbor and the surrender of Japan on August 14, 1945. Daddy was one of them.

The picture shows that this was Company 1845, United States Naval Training Center, Great Lakes, Illinois. You can see a sign in the background that reads 21st Regiment. I don’t know if that relates to this Company or just to the ship photos behind the sailors. The picture was taken on October 19, 1944 so Daddy would have been 18 years old at the time.

Daddy would go on to serve as a cook on the U.S.S. Laffey.

Thank you again, Daddy, for your service!

Reference

• History of Recruit Training Command, Recruit Training Command, The Navy’s Only Bootcamp; https://www.bootcamp.navy.mil/about.html#history

Memories of Orchard Knob Baptist Church

Photo used with permission;
Orchard Knob Baptist Church Facebook group

The 52 Ancestors theme this week is “at worship.”

Orchard Knob Baptist Church, located at 3099 Humphries Drive, a few miles from our home on Macon Drive in Atlanta, Georgia, was the church of my childhood. We worshiped there three times a week—Sunday morning and evening, and Wednesday evening. Mama worked in the nursery while we attended Sunday School and services.

Sunday School classes were just down the hall from the nursery. Every Sunday morning, Mama put a quarter in five offering envelopes and gave each of us one to place in the offering plate that was passed around during the service. On the way to church Sunday evening, Mama stopped at a mom and pop store down the street from the church and bought candy for us—lemon drops come to mind. I wonder if it was a bribe, lol. I remember that I fell asleep during one Sunday night service—the pastor woke me up after the sermon ended and everyone else had already left the church. My sister Bonita remembers that during evening services, some of her age group sat in the back row.

The Lord’s supper was something we looked forward to. The deacons passed around a tray of little round shot glasses filled with grape juice and everyone got one, along with a small cracker. I don’t remember if I understood the meaning of the Lord’s supper but I always thought it was cool to pretend we were drinking wine.

Bonita remembers there being a lot of events for the youth of the church. One program my sister Jennifer and I took part in was the Girls Auxiliary (also known as the GAs), a program “developed to answer the call of girls interested in missionary work through the Southern Baptist Church” according to the website Vintage Kids Clubs Online Museum. I don’t remember for certain but imagine the GAs gathered on Wednesday evenings. Once a year, they held a coronation court that probably took place on a Sunday in front of the entire church congregation. I found the photo below on the Orchard Knob Baptist Church Facebook page taken in 1967 of one such court. You’ll see both myself and my sister Jennifer in the photo. I would have been 11 and Jennifer 13. She was a queen. You can see she’s wearing a crown in the photo. I was a lady-in-waiting. The same Facebook page also had a copy of the program from that court in which we’re both listed. The boys had a program called the RAs, or Royal Ambassadors.

Girls Auxiliary Coronation, Orchard Knob Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, 1967.
I’m the last girl on the right. My sister Jennifer is in the back row, the last girl on the right as well,
peaking her head behind two girls. I recognize several of the girls in the photo. We also went to
school together. Photo used with permission; Orchard Knob Baptist Church Facebook group.

Partial copy of the program from the 1967 Girl Auxiliary coronation.
Photo used with permission; Orchard Knob Baptist Church Facebook group.

Several years ago, I digitized Mama’s slides and discovered a photo of Jennifer and I, probably from the same coronation. You’ll see the GA emblem patch on both of our dresses in the photos below.

Jennifer and Denise Lankford

Denise

 
Bonita participated in the church choir. My brother Michael did as well, although he said it was just for a short time. He’s one of the boys in the photo below.

Orchard Knob Baptist Church choir. Michael is in the front row, third from the left.
Photo used with permission; Orchard Knob Baptist Church Facebook group.

I was baptized at Orchard Knob. The baptismal pool was in the front of the church, up high for all to see. I imagine I was scared to death. I don’t like to be the center of attention so that probably didn’t make me happy either. I remember the pastor putting a cloth over my face before dunking me backwards into the water and then someone handing me a towel.

My sisters Bonita and Jennifer were both married at Orchard Knob. After Jennifer’s wedding, everyone went to the fellowship hall behind the church for the reception.

Orchard Knob held yearly revivals. On April 4, 1964, Rev. Randy Haman, who joined Orchard Knob on August 19, 1962, gave me a pink New Testament Bible for bringing the most guests that week. I wrote his name on the inside cover. I have another Bible from Orchard Knob that was presented to me by Mrs. Connie Rayburn on September 26, 1965. Rev. Haman signed this Bible. He made notation of Philippians 1:3 on both Bibles: I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. I consider both Bibles to be family heirlooms.

Inside cover of full Bible

Rev. Randy Haman
Photo from The Tampa Times, Tampa, Florida,
September 30, 1967

The music director, whose name I can’t recall, played a large xylophone. He often entertained the congregation by playing songs on the xylophone on Sunday nights. We looked forward to that.

At Christmas time, the church raised money for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, a missionary program of the Southern Baptist Church. Mama remembers working with a group of four- and five-year old children they called the Sunbeam Band. The children collected money for the Christmas offering to light up a light on the church Christmas tree. On a prescribed day, the children marched down the aisle to the front of the church to hand over their envelope of money for the offering.

Easter was a big deal because we all got new clothes for Easter Sunday. Mama worked at Hill Brothers Shoes, which eventually became Pay Less Shoes, so you know what brand of shoes we were wearing. We have several photos of Jennifer and I wearing what we call the carrot dresses. They may have been Easter dresses at one point. Bonita remembers one Easter, even though it was extremely cold the Saturday before Easter, Mama washed the car and then woke up with a bad cold Easter morning. Mama didn’t feel good but got all five of us ready, without the help of Daddy, and we went on to church, dressed in our Easter finest. She sacrificed a lot of us during those years.

Denise, Jennifer, and Michael Lankford

Mama doesn’t remember who took the picture below but said we had to be on our way to church because the only time Michael wore a suit was to church.

The Lankford family: Michael, Fay, Vanessa (front middle), Jennifer (back middle),
Bonita, and Denise

As I wrote this, I wondered when Orchard Knob was established so used my historical newspaper subscription to see what I could find. The Atlanta Constitution published a news article on December 5, 1953 that stated “Tomorrow will be the 50th anniversary of Orchard Knob Baptist Church and a Golden Jubilee program is planned” so it appears to have been established in 1903. My family attended during the 1960s into the early 1970s. There’s so much I don’t remember about those years but it’s been fun to take a look back at what I do remember.

References

• Girls’ Auxiliary, Vintage Kids Clubs Online Museum; http://www.vintagekidstuff.com/GAUX/gaux.html.
• “Haman Accepts Pastorate Here,” The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, July 21, 1962.
• “Jubilee Program,” The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, December 5, 1953.
• Lottie Moon; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lottie_Moon. 
• Orchard Knob Baptist Church Facebook page; https://www.facebook.com/Orchard-Knob-Baptist-Church-266212483402695/.
• Personal memories of Fay Lankford and Bonita Streetman.
• Revival notice, The Tampa Times, Tampa, Florida, September 30, 1967.

Daisy Lee Shields, the beautician

Daisy Lee Shields, my granny

The 52 Ancestors theme this week is “out of place.” When I first saw the theme, I remember thinking what in the world am I going to write for this. I mulled it over a couple of weeks but nothing came to mind. By the time I had to get serious and start writing, I had traveled to Georgia to visit my family and found myself “out of place,” without the usual resources nearby. Instead of panicking, I took advantage of the situation and decided to see what Mama had of interest. Lying in bed in what I call my room, I remembered Granny’s cash register tucked away in the closet. Mama once told that Granny used the cash register in her beauty shop for years. At that point, I decided to write about my Granny, Daisy Lee Shields, the beautician. Mama has shared a lot about Granny with me but now it was time to ask more questions.

Granny was a self-employed beautician her entire working career, which spanned 20 to 25 years. She cut hair, did perms, colors, and hair sets—nothing fancy. Her shop usually had four or five dryer chairs and her first shop had a perm machine that looked like it came from outer space. Mama remembers it well, describing it as looking like a lamp on a pole that had cords hanging from what would be the lamp part. At the bottom of the cords were tubes that Granny wrapped the hair around. Once heated up, the tubes curled the hair. The perm machine had wheels and Mama said if you moved around, the perm machine had to travel with you. Of course, I had to Google that and found the image below on Wikimedia.

Icall 1934 Permanent-Waving Machine,
 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by-sa/4.0/legalcode

I also found a YouTube video that I thought was interesting of a woman describing getting a perm as a child with the perm machine. You can view the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bn-6a3vDFA.

Granny married my Granddaddy, Samuel Jackson Holland, about June 1931. She wasn’t working in 1940 when the census was taken but shortly after the enumerator made his rounds to their rented home on Fagan Street in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Granny went to beauty school. She opened her first beauty shop about 1941, around the time she and Granddaddy divorced. After the divorce, Granny moved to an apartment a couple of blocks from the Fagan Street house. Her beauty shop was also nearby. Because Granny had been involved with another man, the judge gave custody of Mama to Granddaddy. Mama remembers she had to pass Granny’s beauty shop when she walked to school as an eight-year-old girl. She’d stop by the shop so Granny could comb her curly hair the way she liked it. Granny bought a newly refurbished cash register to use in her shop. Mama remembers seeing the cash register and now has possession of it. Mama also remembers there being a large plant near the shop that made artillery shells. Granny kept the shop open until 10 or 11 p.m. so the women working the late shift could stop by and get their hair done. She made good money and probably kept the cash register ringing.

In the early 1950’s, Granny opened a beauty shop in Ringgold, Georgia. She named it Bonita’s Beauty Den, after her only grandchild at the time. Granny later opened a beauty shop in Dalton, Georgia and she and her husband Hoyt Vest lived in the back. During the summers, Granny always did our hair—cut and pin curls. My sister Bonita remembers that Granny cut our hair every September for back to school, or as she put it, Granny wacked it up lol. The pictures below were probably taken at the Dalton shop.

Granny giving an unknown woman a perm

Granny preparing a perm solution

Jennifer getting a perm; Bonita in the background

Hoyt helping Granny was my hair

Granny’s cash register was made by the National Cash Register company. It has the brand stamp “National” on the back and a serial/model number plate on the front. The serial number is S600448, with the “S” signifying that Granny purchased it newly refurbished. The model is 711. We believe the cash register is made of brushed metal and has a wood base. It’s very heavy, weighing about 60 to 70 pounds. There is a marble plate above the cash drawer, which still opens. The keys no longer work—the “No Sale” key is stuck. Mama tells me that my son Chris found it in her closet years ago and played with it until the key got stuck and the drawer no longer opened. That was the first I'd heard of that! My husband was able to open the drawer but unable to unstick the key. There is a cover on the top that when lifted, exposes several customer counters. A “Used Register Guarantee” card is glued on the bottom of the cash drawer. Unfortunately, it’s undated. My sister Bonita and her husband owned the Stairway to Heaven Antique Mall in Newnan, Georgia from September 4, 2009 until September 30, 2013 and displayed the cash register in the store. She didn’t use it—just displayed it on the counter for show. There was a cash drawer built into the store counter directly underneath where she placed the register so it gave the illusion that she was opening its drawer when she made a sale. When they sold the shop, she brought the cash register back to Mama. It’s been in our family for at least 79 years so I would classify it as a family heirloom.

Back of cash register

Cash register serial number and model

Side view with drawer and cover open

Counters

Keys and marble plate over cash drawer

Front view. You can see the No Sale key is stuck down.

No sale and placement of serial/model numbers

Used Register Guarantee card glued to bottom of cash drawer

References

1. Chattanooga, Tennessee, City Directory, 1941, 1942.
2. Dates of Manufacture for Factory Rebuilt Equipment, Cash Register Collectors Club; http://www.crcci.org/about-us/how-old-is-my-cash-register.
3. Perm (hairstyle); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perm_(hairstyle).
4. Perm Machine, Indiana State Museum, October 2, 2010; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bn-6a3vDFA. 
5. Personal memories of Fay Lankford and Bonita Streetman.
6. U.S. Federal Census, Chattanooga City, 1st Civil District, Hamilton County, Tennessee, 1940.