{"id":3133,"date":"2011-09-09T05:50:08","date_gmt":"2011-09-09T12:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/?p=3133"},"modified":"2011-11-16T09:51:19","modified_gmt":"2011-11-16T17:51:19","slug":"happy-104th-gertrudeandalice-ethelandmerriel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/09\/happy-104th-gertrudeandalice-ethelandmerriel\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy 104th GertrudeandAlice & EthelandMerriel"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s another September 9th and those in the know will realize another anniversary is upon us!<\/p>\n

For lo and behold, 104 years ago today, Alice walked into that room at Michael Stein’s in Paris and there she was the soon to be love of her life speaking through that coral brooch on her corduroy robe! \u00a0And as I and many, many other Stein folk have said or written: “The rest is history!”<\/p>\n

As I was thinking about what to post for this year’s anniversary and what photograph to use, glanced around our dining room and there on one of the buffets were two collaged portrait-plates. Portrait-plates, you ask? \u00a0Yes, plates on which some early 1960’s Hausfrau pasted scrapes of felt and lace and other do-dads to create a wedding shower gift. (Sometimes the portraits are painted on the plates, though the collaged ones are more desirable.) \u00a0The \u00a0plates were to represent the bride and groom, with their names usually inscribed on each of the plates. \u00a0For some reason known only to someone like \u00a0the craft editor at Good Housekeeping<\/em> magazine, the collaged portraits look like a couple from the not-so gay 1890’s not the 1960’s. \u00a0(You know the couple that would be singing “On a Bicycle Built for Two” on either the Lawrence Welk Show or Sing Along With Mitch during the somewhat Golden Age of mid-1960’s American television – Norma Zimmer and whoever. )<\/p>\n

See what I mean:<\/p>\n

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Well, anyway, we began collecting these plates while living in the Midwest and now have over 60 of them thanks to eBay. \u00a0Each couple is dressed differently and names range from Sue, Minerva, Bessie and Wilma to Joe, Cy, Hermie and Mick. A few years ago we found our first and so far only lesbian couple plates and those are the plates that caught my eye on the buffet. \u00a0There they sit Ethel and Merriel.<\/p>\n

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When and where this couple met – Cedar Rapids, Springfield, Hoboken, San Francisco – we’ll never know, but Ethel certainly carried the Alice gene and Merriel the Gertrude gene as is evident from their choice of attire.<\/p>\n

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Happy Anniversary GertrudeandAlice and I hear you’re invited to tea at EthelandMerriel’s at 4PM. Don’t expect some fancy gift, but Ethel makes a mean pound cake and Merriel favors a glass of sherry once the teapot is empty, so a good time should be had by all.<\/p>\n

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PS<\/p>\n

If anyone sees any these plates in second-hand stores or online, please let me know. \u00a0As all collectors know, there is always room for one more or in this case two more.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s another September 9th and those in the know will realize another anniversary is upon us! For lo and behold, 104 years ago today, Alice walked into that room at Michael Stein’s in Paris and there she was the soon to be love of her life speaking through that coral brooch on her corduroy robe! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3133"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3488,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3133\/revisions\/3488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}