Show time!THIS MONTH!!!
DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION!
By the time you get this newsletter, well, who knows what will have happened?
As your newsletter writer, it is hard, when the month starts on a Tuesday, because that means the second Tuesday, our meeting day, is really fast approaching!
Well, that was how things lined up last April! This year is very different! This year, April started on Wednesday, and the Kalamazoo Antique Bottle Show is here this weekend! That means, it will be over by the time you get this!
If you missed all of the bottle show hullabaloo, don’t feel too bad, we still have an April club meeting planned for Tuesday, April 14th!
I didn’t try to go to the show with my detector display, last year, or this year. Even with the great help, which I had, it was just a little too much work for me. I must say the real hard part was loading my truck on Friday, and being in time for the hospitality fellowship, and with food items besides!
I enjoyed that, those were the best of times! But, as we get older, which I have been trying to avoid, many things are not so easy to accomplish.
So, I am thinking, very likely, at our next meeting everyone will be sharing their bottle show stories!
LAST MEETING
We had a good turnout for our March meeting. While the night was clear, and the air was brisk, hopes ran high that winter is about to crawl into a long summer hibernation. Oh please Lord let it be so!
Vincent provided me with a list of clubbers who were at the last meeting. That list of dignitaries included the following:
Vincent Grossi, Carol Danauser, Gordy Hubenet, Gary Dean, Len Sheaffer, Lynn Kozik, Dann Louis,
Scott Hendrichsen, Mary Murray (New Member), Jim Jesiek (New Member), Mary Gale, Katie Wages,
Brian Wages, Kelly Bobbit, Kevin Siegfried, Eddie Nickerson, Al Holden.
(If I did this right you can click on a button panel and it will enlarge)
Just when you though we were all buttoned up, Carol Danhauser, from the
Michigan Button Society
gave us an amazing a presentation on . . . . . . .
“BUTTON COLLECTING!”
By the time that I had arrived, Carol had her button display all set-up, and it was amazing! A truly beautiful eye-catching display of every kind of button imaginable! I was very impressed!
There was so much to learn!
Personally, I saw more logic in the button collecting, than I saw in the marble collecting, but there are also parallels. The buttons can be collected by categories, which I think are a little more clearly defined, but like the marbles (and bottles) you can just focus on what you like. And, like the marbles, there are artisans making new collectable buttons.
We saw that many of the buttons being collected are not what you would expect. They never actually ever fell off someone’s shirt or long-john flap. They were made for the purpose of collecting.
This hand carved button from South America has real Piranha’s teeth!
I took picture-after-picture of this amazing button collection!
One year we were down at Fort Myers, Florida visiting my grandmother. When we were there in Fort Myers We met up with my mother and step father. We went to a place that I can never get too much of, Thomas Edison’s Winter Home and laboratory and Gardens. The staff working in his lab, left everything and walked away from their work bench on first word of his passing! To this day everything is just as they left things.
Right outside
the entrance is a HUGE Banyan Tree. Edison, brought into
his 
estate’s yard and gardens,
tropical trees from all over the world. He was looking
for the right fibers to make a lasting light bulb
element.The Banyan tree, sends up limbs reaching out to form a canopy just like any large tree that we are familiar with. But, from each limb it sends down roots, which in turn grow-up as trees themselves, and they repeat the process! In about 100 years, the one tree, becomes a whole forest! It really is amazing!
So, on that trip, my step father’s leg was bothering him, so he waited for us on a bench under that huge Banyan tree.
Later when mom developed her film, one roll was full of pictures of that beautiful Banyan tree! Hod got completely enthralled! Just like I was with the buttons! We loved to tease him about the Banyan Tree!
I’ll tell you who has an amazing button collection! That
person is our club President, Scott
Hendrichsen! Saving tiny historic items, as tiny as buttons, really shows his level of expertise at privy digging! To carefully be watching and saving the hundreds of buttons as he now has, shows he has a real eye for treasure, and a love for the past. I can’t help but think, “Oh if only these things could talk!”
Think of the individual stories each one represents!
Losing a button on your shirt, or other clothing, was a really big deal back in the 1800's!
I collect
early American Sunday School books printed by the American Sunday School Union.The American Sunday School Union printed these small booklets, each filled with Bible stories and the message of God’s love, which often centered around a person’s personal testimony.
Some of my earliest copies are from 1803. One issue that I treasure, was published in 1820 and it is called “Susan Marbles Memoir.”
Think of this; these little books were being passed out during the Civil War in both the Union and Confederate Camps. But, some of these young missionaries carried the literature right onto the battle fields during fighting! Often their message of the Gospel, and the way to eternal life, was read to dying troops. . . . UNDER FIRE!!!
In my treasured book, Susan Marble’s Memoir, the story is precious, and the person who owned this little book really treasured it 206 years before I did.
My point to all this
is; that this little book has a hand-made, marbled
rag-paper cover, which, at that time was made from a
high percentage cotton rag. The cover on the little book
had torn, and its owner, likely a little girl, used
thread to sew the cover. It meant that much to her! People look at the world today, as we struggle for things, even when we have too many things, yet still we want more. People think we have advanced far above that little pioneer child who treasured this little book!
In so many cases we have become so rich and increased with goods, there are many no longer need the God who was once treasured. When you are your own self- contained God, you have become the person Satan promised Eve could be in his Garden lie.
Several of my friends with metal detectors, those who get into areas where Civil War Relics are to be found, find buttons the soldiers had made by punching holes in small coins. Replacing a button was that valuable to them. I have also seen buttons hand fashioned from lead bullets some hand carved from wood.
We have found larger two hole
buttons that were likely used to make toy-whizzers, some
call them whirligig or spinners.Some of the bullet carvers in the Civil War were master artists! I have seen Civil War carved bullets (trench art) that are amazing! The best one I have seen, was a highly detailed beautiful southern belle with a beautiful flowing dress. It wasn’t found at an encampment site, it was found at an actual battle site!
Some friends, when metal detecting near hospital sites have found bullets with human teeth marks. I even saw one with a tooth fragment! If it could tell that painful story!
Vince’s Notes
Thanks to Vincent, I have some newsletter material I can easily share, in the copy-and-paste fashion with
(just a little tweaking.)
♬
I heard it
through the grapevine ♬
♬ Thanks to Vincent, I have some newsletter material I can easily share, in the copy-and-paste fashion with
(just a little tweaking.)
Well, Vincent tells me that the Bottle Show had a great turn out! The plan for free admission at the door paid off, in a manner of speaking. They saw 320 walk in! That was the final count!
The final dealer count was 41, and table count was 75 Tables (Sold). The weather could have been better.
I have just wasted my way through another wonderful doctor.
I went to his office retirement party, where I suggested he write a book called Retirement for Dummies and I will buy the first copy! Then I asked, “Do you plan to continue living here in Antarctica?”
So, what about that Fisher F-44 Metal Detector and pin-pointer?
Vince tells me that beautiful treasure hunting package was won by, Samantha Bradford- Heusmann from Three Rivers, MI. Samantha and Matthew Heusmann joined the bottle club as well.
Matthew 's father Russell Heusmann, a new Dealer to the show, became a bottle club member too.
Our next meeting’s program will be our (once before canceled) presentation on the
Daughters of the American Revolution!
Presented by our own beloved Mary Gale and Katie Wages.
I am qualified to be a member of the Son’s of the Revolution, so I was, and now more than ever, interested in this!
I think it is wonderful to have special programs. I was a special program again last evening April 7th at the Kalamazoo Gem & Mineral Club. That club is interesting and it was fun!
But in light of the many different topics we have enjoyed, we must not lose focus on the antique bottles.
I think in light of America’s 250th Anniversary, it is fitting that we hear from and about the Daughters of the Revolution!
Let’s make our theme bottles for April, the earliest bottles we have, ones dating near 1776. Also, any Patriotic theme bottles or products. The Dairy guys should do well at this.
I am a Great Lakes ship nerd, I
love camping at the Soo and watch my favorite freighters
lock through. For the Bicentennial, 1976, the
American Fleets were all decorated up in stars and
stripes . . . it was so cool! I can’t wait to get up
there this summer! April is all about Easter!
Towards the end of His ministry the Jewish leaders were putting more and more pressure on Jesus to “Tone it down” and, all the while He could feel the shadow of the cross was right before Him.
“Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?” Asked Jesus as they picked up stones. “For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy and, because, thou being a man makes Thyself God.”
Words like, “I and my father are one,” were not blasphemy on the Saviour’s lips. It was a simple declaration of fact. He was with the Father from the beginning, and all things were made by Him.
These Jewish leaders with their religious bigotry were about to be part of the most heinous crimes of all ages, the very consummation of all wickedness, the crucifixion of their Messiah!
Jesus could not tone down His claims. The scriptures bore Him witness, His sinless life bore Him witness. History has said a cosmic amen to His claims. Millions upon millions of Christians down through the ages have by-faith tested them and found them to be true.
A man once asked me if Jesus had been killed with a gun instead of a cross, “would you wear a gun on my chain?” I explained, "the cross wasn’t a weapon, and it was not for His crime that He died, it was done for my sin . . . He had none of His own. It wasn't His cross, it was mine."
Jesus said, “No man taketh My life, but I lay it down Myself. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it again.”
My Pastor's Sunday message condensed into a tiny capsule: "Sin isn't the things we do, it is who we are."
In His last hours, Jesus was not searching for options. He said,
"The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?"
Have you ever asked, “What was in that cup?”
In that cup was the real horror to be confronted on that cross! It was what was so ugly it made His Heavenly Father turn away, it was what turned the sky black and the earth to open up. It was our sin. Our ugly sin.
He knew that the Father's hand is upon every circumstance, the Father did not inspire the hate and treachery, the crown of thorns and the rest . . . those tools of hate . . they were from the powers of darkness.
Satan was moving all hell against the Son of God. Satan entered into Judas; he sifted Peter and fanned Jewish religious bigotry into a white heat like never before known.
Yet, because His Father so Loved the world . . . and our broken lives; so, He was obedient onto death. For sinners! . . . . "it isn't the things we do, it is who we are. "
We need to be SAVED.
Now, it is the function of the Holy Spirit to make this real to the sinner who turns to Christ for salvation. Were it not for the Spirit and His wondrous work, man could never come into the amazing inheritance which is his because of the finished work of a Crucified Saviour. Yes indeed, as Jesus said from the cross . . . .
"It is Finished."
And, my debt was paid in full!
How about you?
The
Kalamazoo Antique Bottle Club
Meets At the
Otsego Historic Society
Museum
Meeting date is
APRIL 14th
at 7:00 pm
The Museum is located at 218 N. Farmer St. Otsego, MI
Meeting starts at 7:00
Information
Meets At the
Otsego Historic Society
Museum
Meeting date is
APRIL 14th
at 7:00 pm
The Museum is located at 218 N. Farmer St. Otsego, MI
Meeting starts at 7:00
Information
