Tiny Tuesday: Celebration

Thanks to Walking Wombat, who began the Tiny Tuesday weekly challenge last year and watched it grow exponentially, and all those who stepped in to host along the way, we are beginning year two of this fascinating challenge!

One of my favorite tiny things is this little leather box, which contains a cameo pin and a handwritten note on the back of my 3 x great-grandmother's calling card. Harriet Elvira Moorman was born in 1818 and died in 1916 at age 98, and judging by her shaky handwriting here, I expect she might have received this cameo for her 80th, or perhaps even 90th birthday.

Her husband, LaFayette F. Johnson, was exactly five years older than Harriet. He was 91 when he died in 1904, so perhaps he was the gift-giver.  

They had nine children over twenty years; the oldest, Rosalie Virginia Johnson, who was my 2 x great-grandmother, appeared in my journal earlier this year. (If you go back to that link, note how the bonnet she's wearing in the middle photo is very like the one her mother is wearing in the extra photo accompanying this entry!)   

By now you're probably wondering what this has to do with Tiny Tuesday... well, for me the little leather box in which this cameo resided is the real treat, particularly the tiny brass hooks that close the box, as seen in the extra photos. That end of the box measures 5/16th of an inch (8 mm), so you can imagine how minuscule those hooks are!

The box is 3-3/16th inches (81 mm) long and 2-5/16th inches (75 mm) wide, and has a tooled design on the top. The cameo doesn't seem as finely made, which puzzles me a bit -- but nonetheless, I'm sure that Harriet was pleased with this gift, and I'm grateful to my female ancestors who passed these tiny treasures on for more than a century!  

[Addendum: Add me to the list of blippers who bought macro lenses last year, inspired by Tiny Tuesday!]

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