I met Jean Lowrey a few years ago when she stopped by the Community Foundation to discuss Dalton Education Foundation business. I attended the meeting only as an observer, and what I observed that day was storytelling at its finest. Everything Ms. Lowrey says is entertaining. She chooses interesting words and idioms for her conversations. Her timing is impeccable. I wasn't observing a business meeting that day—I was watching a performance.
Jean Lowrey's story, "The Custard Spoon," is in Project Keepsake. Enjoy!
Months later, I was thrilled when she shared a keepsake story with me. Her story is about an old custard spoon that once belonged to her grandmother, but like the other stories in the collection, it's really not about the keepsake. The keepsake merely opens the doorway for a story that needs to be told.
Jean's story brings to mind my own grandmothers. Each of my grandmothers loved to cook for large crowds—as if they were feeding small armies. So, when Jean described her grandmother's cooking in her keepsake story, I was hooked. Here's an excerpt:
“I saw a wrinkled, aged-spotted hand slowly and gently guiding the spoon, around and around and around the pot as a cream-colored recipe continued to thicken and coat the sides of the pot and the spoon. Around and around, again and again. Thickening and coating. Mesmerizing motions. The hand and the spoon working as one.
Around and around, she continued to stir. With her free hand, she swatted at a fly which had located the lone hole in the kitchen window screen.”