Little Egypt Heritage Articles eduda tsunogisdi © Bill Oliver 4 February 2007 Vol 6 Issue: #05 ISBN: pending O’siyo, Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen of Little Egypt, “Hey, it’s ....” I was just surfing on E-bay the other day, not doing anything, just surfing on the site, and I came across a ceramic/china bell being auctioned. At that moment the bid was around $70.00. My thoughts went to something like, “Now who’d pay that for a china bell?”, forgetting that some years ago, a neighbor of mine began collecting small ceramic bells to display in her front room. She paid more than that for some of hers and they were smaller – little ‘tinkly’ ones. Then, I noticed an iron cast trivet with an ceramic center. The bid for this item was very close to $50.00 I didn’t think much of the bell until I found the trivet. It wasn’t the items themselves that attracted my eye but rather the Autumn Leaf pattern on both of them. Bells and whistles started revolving in my mind’s eye. I remember rural home deliveries of gasoline and propane. In the city, there were delivery people for ice, milk, coal and Bibles. There was the vegetable man who came around twice weekly ‘hawking’ fresh vegetables. He always had samples for Grandma and us kids. I never questioned where he got those vegetables, I just presumed he grew them. That was where we got our tomatoes, cantalopes, peaches, etc. Watermelon we got from our Uncles’ farms. If we got peaches, I remember somewhere ice cream was made, but it slips my mind as to who had an ice cream maker. It might be because making ice cream was hard work for me. Hey, then there was the ‘ragman’ and the ‘junkman’. These two collected things you wanted to get rid of and sold items he thought would sell to someone else. Both these folks had horns which they blew before yelling out their business. Now that I’m thinking nostalgic there was the ‘Fuller Brush Man’ who periodically came to our houses. And the Watkins deliveryman; however, I don’t remember what he delivered. Getting back to the e-Bay items. I finally remembered where that Autumn Leaf pattern appeared in my mind. It was on the bowls and dishes that my aunts used every Sunday for our family dinners. For one reason or another, I most remember them at Aunt Nellie’s home. They were yellow with that pattern on them. Yep, they were from a catalog [wishing book] that the Jewel Tea Man brought. In the thirties while growing up I remember these door-to-door ‘traveling’ salesmen and their brown panel wagon or vans. Well, maybe it was in the ‘forties’ or the late thirties that I remember the brown trucks. Yes, it was a big deal when they came around. The Jewel Tea Company began in Chicago before I was born and even before Grandma Oliver got married. Household products were sold through a traveling salesforce from 1901 through 1981. They supplied most everything from grocery items, including baking powder, to cleaning supplies, as well as linens, cookware and items of china. The Jewel-T man sold many items one couldn’t find anywhere else and if one bought enough there were ‘specials’ – toys for children, candy, and ‘premiums’ such as Autumn Leaf china. What made a premium? Well, they are just items that one can purchase at a special price after purchasing other items totaling a certain amount. Barb and I did this with our ‘kitchen’ dishes from the A & P stores we frequented in the late fifties and early sixties. In fact I still have one of the plastic plates which our granddaughter likes to use as ‘hers’ because it is pink. At one time the Jewel-T company was a very large retailer. Back in the days when housewives did not drive and unless you lived in a metropolitan area where stores were not far apart, the Jewel Tea Company brought the store to the customer. With his delivery ‘wagon’ containing coffee, tea [yes, they did sell tea], spices, other grocery and household items, the Jewel Tea man was a welcome ‘caller’. He was also a retailer for other items such as clothing. He would take your order one week and deliver it the next. To thank customers for their patronage, they offered premiums and one of the most popular premiums was the pattern made exclusively for them by the Hall China Company. This was a stylized design of orange, browns and yellows with gold rims on pieces of chinaware. My family was not one that had much money for luxuries, but we must have drunk a lot of coffee and tea because dinnerware service of the Autumn Leaf pattern adorned many tables. By the nineteen forties we were making enough money to buy the pattern outright without going through the premium routine. By then the Jewel Tea company began putting out new speicalty items yearly to keep interest high. I would think that this was early ‘good’ marketing strategy for one could never own a ‘complete’ collection unless they kept up with all the new items. When housewives lived in less rural areas and drove, buying supplies from the traveling Jewel-T man was replaced by Jewel Tea stores. The dinnerware was discontinued in 1978, which took the Autumn Leaf collectibles into the secondary market. The pattern was re-introduced on a limited basis in 1990 by China Specialties and with some shapes never before made with that pattern. I’m not sure if they are still producing new pieces at this time or not. Well, we don’t hear anyone say, “Hey, it’s the Jewel-T man”, anymore, except in our heads. e-la-Di-e-das-Di ha-WI NV-WA-do-hi-ya NV-WA-to-hi-ya-da. (May you walk in peace and harmony) Wado, Bill -=- 919 PostScript: I remember that the Jewel Tea man once came with unbreakable tumblers. To test that, I placed one on the floor and stepped on it. I’m sure you can conjure up the results. [Bill] "Myths are universal and timeless stories that reflect and shape our lives ..." Alexander McCall Smith, Dream Angus Archived articles: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=ilmassac