Emmy’s Shopping #1of8

Emmy’s shopping sprees* during our visits to Europe, would fill a book, so a page here and a page there, will just tell part of the story. Sometimes she has a problem making up her mind to buy this now, or to buy that tomorrow, but most times an “Emmy-spending-delay” is a synonym for “momentary.”

One year we arrived in Füssen, Germany, on a rainy Saturday morning, and in an antique store Emmy found an “old” brass charcoal heater, eighteen inches in diameter, twenty inches high, with six heavy solid brass legs, but she just couldn’t make up her mind, before the store closed for the weekend. Sunday night was spent about fifty miles from Füssen, but guess what, Monday noon we were back in Füssen waiting at the door for that antique store to open.

We visited Ferrara, Italy, on a Sunday, just in time to buy some groceries and a couple of gadgets at the flea and food market, as it was closing for the day.

In an antique shop in Baddeckenstedt, Germany, Emmy’s eyes were riveted on a boxed set of six serving spoons. But even though they were sterling and engraved with her initials, she hesitated, so no sale. However, the next day Emmy found the proprietor’s home, and for that week, her antique shop was open on Wednesday morning in addition to its normal hours.

Inside the box of spoons is the name “Franz Jenrich Juwelier, Quedlinburg,” a town, a few miles east of here, located in what had been East Germany, for 40 years. A few years later, after the Berlin Wall fell, we visited the jewelry store and met the wife of a grandson of Franz Jenrich. She was delighted to hear our story, and Emmy was tickled to find the origin of her serving spoons. High on the outside of the building, the name Franz Jenrich and the date 1904 are painted on a horizontal half-timber, indicating his jewelry store must date from early in the twentieth century.

* Come to think of it, an Emmy’s shopping spree most often took place in a grocery store—we did eat well. And I have been known to buy this or that, from time to time.