A "little powder jar" that was on my grandmother's mother's dresser. My great-grandmother said that she got it from her grandmother and that it probably held make-up powder at some point. By the time it was passed to my great-grandmother the make-up was long gone and it has held various sewing pins, hair accessories, and earrings over the years. It would have been bought in England between 1850 and 1875 and brought over to the US when my great-grandmother immigrated with her parents as a young girl prior to World War I. My grandmother gave this to me when I was helping her move some valuables from her house to my parents’ house during a wild fire in Southern California in May 2014. At this point the jar has lived in at least four sates: California, Nebraska, Colorado, and New York. It’s quite remarkable that a jar this small has managed to survive this many years – especially as my grandmother broke the lid to the jar when she was a child. I now keep it on my dresser in my room with the same small odds and ends in it that my great-great-great grandmother did.

– Rachel Cloyd

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