It's a FIESTA

It seems as though I have fond memories erupting in my head the past few weeks of my Grandma and Pa Kelly.

This 50th anniversary picture is how I vividly remember them

Lydia Victoria (Beck), for whom I was named, and Samuel Adams Kelly had an old house in Provo with one bathroom and two bedrooms. When staying at their house, Camille and I would usually sleep in the fold out sofa in the living room which was off the big old porch in the front of the house. I wonder if they ever sat on that old porch.
I just remember them sitting in their 2 metal tulip chairs off the side of the house stairs near the little two tire driveway leading into the packed one car garage.

Something like this.

 

....Or this.  I don't remember the colors, but maybe one was green and one yellow???

I have some little replicas of these old vintage chairs on my bookcase during the summer.

But, I digress. This entry isn't about porches or tulip chairs, or even cute sayings like, "The hurrier I go, the behinder I get," that my Grandma had hanging in her kitchen.

(Oh, that reminds me of another didi that I mentioned to Michael the other day. Grandma also had a picture of a chicken and egg with the question "Which came first?" as the caption.  Another time? You say? Get to the point?)

Oh yeah, my grandma's kitchen. We used to eat on very colorful dishes that had been purchased for her by my father. He was her sweet 19 ish year old son serving his country across the world in Germany in WWII.  The year was probably 1945? He went into the army the summer of '44, so it could've been that year too. Apparently he sent $$ to a girl friend and asked her to get his mom the dishes for Christmas. My usually non-jealous mom, I recall, never really liked those dishes much, but I always thought they were great colors and shapes.
I always thought the drink pitchers were so interesting in their form, and the gravy boat was really cool too. They were in turquoise, and pink, dark blue, ... I can't recall all the colors.  Very Art Deco and a new idea of non-matching dinnerware in the 30's and 40's.

Aren't these pitchers the best?

Well, I bought some reminiscent  Fiesta Ware in various colors this summer. They are still the same sizes and shapes. More colors than before, but apparently the company always has at least 6 colors in production, and you can usually find newly retired colors for the same price or even less.

I got 12 matching cobalt blue plates to match my kitchen, but I also purchased several colors of some of the pieces and so it's fun now when serving just a couple of people, to decide what the meal will present like on a certain color of plate. The Hubby is also into choosing the plate to coordinate with the food.

What think ye of this purple cauliflower in the persimmon footed bowl? The brown bowl just wouldn't do.  (Remember my CSA? Yes this week we had purple cauliflower. It was beautiful)

I read somewhere that at least 2 of the colors at any given time are from the original set of colors, released in 1936 by an American pottery company Homer Laughlin. Some pieces that were in production for short time periods are in high demand today.

I wonder if any of my cousins have those old dishes my father bought for his sweet mother in storage or use somewhere???  I'm gonna have to find that one out.