My Grandpa's Peeps

Erotic jewelry was a key element in Herb 'n' Lorna, the Eric Kraft novel I just finished reading. I was reminded of a ring my father passed along to me a year or two ago. It had originally belonged to my mother's dad, Rosmer Kerr, whom my grandmother affectionately called by his initials, R.P.

The stone in the top of this ring is large. You can't see much of it in the picture--it's set deep into the ring--but it has many facets and catches the light rather nicely. However, this ring is not about the stone, which is surely made of glass or paste. This ring is all about that little round spot you see on the side.

The spot is an opening in the metal which goes all the way through to the other side. If you hold the ring up to the sun or a lamp, you can see light through this opening. If you hold the ring very close to your eye and look into this opening, which isn't much bigger than the head of a pin, you discover a tiny black & white photo inside.

There are two women in the picture. They are unclothed, lying down in a loose embrace. The one with her back to the viewer is resting her head on a bolster pillow of a medium-dark color, gathered on the end and finished with a large covered button. You can't see her face, only the back of her head. Her left arm reaches to embrace the other woman, who is behind her facing the viewer, perhaps up on one elbow because her head is higher. Her face, in fact, is the clearest part of the picture. She's looking down at the face of the first woman.

Her expression? Well, in my estimation, despite the position she's in, she's expressionless. Neutral. If not neutral, then what? Bored? Disinterested? Pissy? Tired of the photographer telling her what to do? Anything but passionate! Anything but erotic!

She has her arm over the shoulder of the first woman, her hand at the back of the first woman's head. Any view of her breasts is obscured by their arms. The rest of their bodies seem to be soft-focused to such an extent that, really, there's not much to see. Much ado about nothing, by today's standards. The thrill, I suppose, was in the idea, and in the clever and secretive placement of it inside the ring.

The photo has the number 839 in the lower right corner just below the bolster, but the ring itself has no identifying markings of any kind. Based on the second woman's hair style, I estimate the photo was taken about 1910.

R.P. was born in 1892. He and his brother Milton attended the business college at Valparaiso University in 1911-1912. My best guess is that he would have gotten the ring about that time. Sometime before his death in 1969, he gave the ring to my father.

Uncle Paul

Paul Koenig was born in Buer, Germany. He immigrated in 1923 and joined his uncle Fred Hebert in Detroit. He had worked as a confectioner in Germany, and he found work as a baker in Detroit. Later he was employed at Packard Automotive Company.

He was the second husband of Marceline Corneilson Lindsay. They lived on Townsend Avenue in the same house in which Marceline had grown up.

On Jefferson, about a block away, was the Coast Guard armory where my father was stationed after World War II. Paul and my father met at a local Biergarten, as Paul called it (yes, that translates as "beer garden"). Paul and Marceline invited the young war veteran to Thanksgiving dinner in 1945. My mother, Marceline's niece, was among the other dinner guests. She and my father met there, and were married six weeks later.

Paul and Marceline maintained close family ties but had no children of their own. Both died young, Marceline at 57 and Paul four years later at the age of 62.

Ice Cream Parlor

George Corneilson's ice cream parlor
(click to enlarge)

My Auntie Marceline got her red hair from her father, George Corneilson, my great-grandmother's second husband. George ran an ice cream parlor in Detroit. He bought the store on November 20, 1914. This photo was taken about four years later, when he was 60 years old and Marceline was 14. The store was located at 2607 E. Jefferson at the corner of Lycaste, a little over a mile from their home. Click on the photo for a larger view.

I was going to save this photo for a hot summer day, but today I ran across an interesting article about the history of soda fountains and ice cream parlors in Detroit. Should you decide to read it, you'll be rewarded with some pretty tasty-looking recipes for hot-fudge topping, caramel icing, and buttercream icing, adapted from the recipes of well-known Detroit confectioner Fred Sanders.

Auntie

My sweet red-haired Auntie had no children of her own. She had a high voice with a screeching quality to it, like nails on a chalkboard. She and Uncle Paul lived in Detroit, a short walk from the Belle Isle Bridge. They hosted the Thanksgiving dinner at which my parents met. Inside their front porch a notepad was hung next to the door, so you could leave a note if they were not home when you came to visit. Their house no longer exists. Indeed, I think even the street is gone now.