Tiffany Dishes for a Bronx Girl

When my beloved grandfather, Gilbert Goldstein, died in 2014, my mother found this Tiffany china set in his cabinet, untouched. She researched it and found the pattern, Floral Armorial, was designed for young couples who wanted to look like they came from aristocratic families. The blue crest design is supposed to mimic a noble family’s coat of arms. Myrna Weiner, my grandmother, would have bought this china set in the early 60’s when she and my grandfather were living in an apartment in Riverdale with my father and his brother. Myrna had grown up up poor in the Bronx in the 1930’s. Both her parents immigrated from Russia. Her father, Morris, worked as a garment presser and her mother, Yetta, never received an education or became a citizen. When Myrna was 28, she married my grandfather. He worked in the garment district and would one day start his own fashion line, Gibby Girl. Eventually they moved to a beautiful house in New Jersey. It was a big change from how they grew up.  Myrna died of cancer in 1985, at only 54. I never knew my grandmother, but the china set, which will one day be mine, makes me feel like I do.

– Grace Goldstein

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more