Today I packed up this plate. I need to tell a story about it. After I was married, my Mom gave it to me. She said it was one of the only things she had made by her mother, Ruby Lundquist Smuin. It was a treasure. I was thrilled to have it. Mom said Ruby painted several pieces of china, but only this piece remained.
I took the plate and carefully wrapped it in my underwear before situating it carefully in my suitcase. After traveling home from the visit to my Mom in California, I unpacked. Our bedroom was upstairs. The laundry room was in the basement of our first house. I took an armload of dirty clothes and threw them over the stairwell down to the main floor to make the trip easier. I forgot the plate was packed in that laundry. It hit the floor, and the plate broke into a dozen or more pieces. I was SICK when I realized what I had done. I gathered up all the pieces and put them in a box. I never told my Mom what had happened to the plate.
Years later, my good friend, Jorge Delgadillo, who cleans our house with his wife, Blanca, offered to fix broken little toilet-paper-holding man that the kids had toppled and broken. It was a difficult puzzle to put together, but he did a masterful job. He told me he loved mending things. I remembered the plate and brought it out to show him. His eyes lit up and he offered to put the pieces together for me. He did a fantastic job. You can hardly notice the plate was once in many pieces.
For the last several years, that plate has been displayed, in honor of Grandma Ruby. Today I CAREFULLY packed it away for our move to the new house, where I will find a good home for it.