By SALLIE SATTERTHWIATE
Lifestyle Columnist

Dave's mother had a habit that he used to mimic irreverently. She'd glance at a calendar and say, “Hmmm, today's Aunt So-and-so's birthday. She'd have been 97.” Of course, Aunt So-and-so had died 15 years earlier.

To this Dave would say, “Yeah, and Thomas Jefferson would have been 237 if he had lived.”

I learned to put it more carefully: “My grandfather Wilson was born 135 years ago today.” No one could challenge that phraseology, nor NPR's “Today is the birth anniversary of....”

Dave caught me reflecting upon my mother's sterling silver early in July, and before I thought, I said: “Do you know what day this is? Mom would have been 101 today.”

For once Dave held his tongue.

I had found a brochure and a letter tucked in the bottom of the case, and finally understood some of her reasons for buying what she did.

Mom was born in the last century to a Pennsylvania farm family that would be considered poor today. They lived like everyone else in their community, however, raising their own food, cutting wood, their lives centered around church and school.

In turn, all seven siblings graduated high school, and most returned to teach for a few years in the one-room schoolhouse they had attended from first to eighth grade. Most married rather late. One stayed with farming; the rest, with a bit more education, went into business and technical fields.

Mom went to business college and moved to Harrisburg, where she became a legal stenographer in a prominent law firm. She owned the house she lived in and another that she rented out, and cared for her mother until her mother died of cancer in 1927.

I wonder now if wasn't a bit unusual for a spinster in the 1920s to “go to housekeeping” so independently. I know that she emulated people she thought had good taste, and seemed determined to shed all traces of her rustic origins.

She thought sterling silver was requisite for urbane living, and chose “Gorham's newest pattern” in 1933, Rose Marie, an exquisite slender art deco design.

After she did marry, at 37, the sterling came out only for special events. It became mine, as her only surviving child, when Mom “broke up housekeeping,” as she put it, about 1971.

The letter to her sister-in-law, a carbon copy, was dated Dec. 27, 1933.

Reading between the lines I gathered that Aunt Hazel had some contact that would allow her to order the sterling at a deep discount.

Discount! An accompanying brochure listed the pieces Mom wanted, and their prices. I couldn't believe my eyes, even knowing this was Depression era:

Twelve teaspoons: $16. That's total, not each.

Eight salad forks with gilt tines: $20. Total.

The pieces she was ordering, “enough to serve six at dinner and also to prepare for eight for cards,” retailed at $119, less a 30 percent discount, or $83.36.

I never could figure out why she ordered gilt-bowled demitasse spoons (at $8.67 for eight) and tiny butter knives, but not soup spoons, two sizes of which were available. I understood skipping iced tea spoons — she lived in Pennsylvania.

Mom conferred with the couple next door “who bought their sterling when they were married, to see if there are any additional pieces I may need. They both said they seldom ever use the sugar tongs and never have used soup spoons.” She could always add later if she wanted anything else, she observed.

She did, in fact, add several pieces, serving utensils like a slotted nut spoon and a jelly server. And I found a list she typed in 1962 — a wish list perhaps? — that said soup spoons were now $8 and $9.50 apiece, and dinner forks had gone from $4 apiece in 1933 to $13.25.

I'm glad she didn't opt for several other curious pieces on the list.

What would you do with orange spoons and oyster forks? A mayonnaise ladle? Ice cream forks?

I certainly would have purchased soup spoons before demitasse, and felt genuinely handicapped not to be able to serve soup properly with Mom's now-discontinued pattern. So I began watching for them in flea markets and subscribed to Replacements' monthly listings.

Over a period of years to soften the blow, I bought what it took to bring the set up to eight places. To further offset the cost, I even gathered up and took to the flea market half a dozen odds and ends of flatware, none very pretty and all of unknown pedigree — but enough to trade for two Rose Marie dinner knives.

Still, no soup spoons. Replacements had them, both sizes, but I felt faint at the price: from $30 to $40. Apiece. Plus shipping and handling.

I went on lusting for them, dropping hints to family for several Christmases, birthdays and anniversaries — which they later indignantly denied hearing.

Finally Replacements' print-out listed enough cream soup spoons to allow them to drop the price to about $22. I bit the bullet and wrote a check, not even pretending this was for Mom or my own daughters. This was for me.

Their arrival was slightly anti-climactic. Eight tiny soup spoons, nested together, don't make a very large package.

But here they are, the brightest constellation in Mom's silver case. At last I feel as though the set is complete, and have not yet begun to hanker for iced tea spoons.

In 1933, they were $22. For all eight.

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