An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving2008

Mathilda Bassett:
[narrating] My mother took few things when she and Ellis Bassett left her home when she was 17. The plainest dress she owned. A pair of sturdy shoes, for my father had warned her they would do a great deal of walking. The embroidered shawl he gave her when they became engaged. And a porcelain cup. The cup was part of a tea service, originally presented to Louis XIV in 1683, which Isabella had painstakingly reassembled on her many trips abroad. It was the only complete set of its kind. For most of my mother's childhood, Isabella had the service on proud display in the hallway. My father heard rumor that she kept it out after my mother left, the empty saucer a daily reminder of what had been taken from her.