Inheritance

Between when my grandmother passed away in July of 2008 and now, I've been handed down a few pieces of her jewelry and thought they would be fun to show them off and share a little background about them.

A couple months after she passed, my Grandpa asked my parents if there was anything in particular they wanted - and they asked us the same question. I felt so weird asking for this ring... the only reason I did so was because Grandma had told me time and time again that she wanted me to have it after she passed away. However, I remember stories in the family of my great-grandparents telling multiple people that they wanted them to have things and large arguments ensuing. Arguing was definitely what I DID NOT WANT so I brought it up to my Mom but made it absolutely clear that if Grandpa wanted anyone else to have the ring or wanted to keep it that I was completely OK with that. I didn't hear anything about the whole thing until a couple months later when I was home for something. "Here," my mom said as she handed me a white envelope, "It's that ring of Grandma's." Sweet! I think I remember Grandma saying that the ring has been in the family for 8 generations and that she got it from her great-grandmother Carpenter. The ring fits my left ring finger perfectly and sometimes I wear it instead of my own wedding band and engagement ring. It's such a simple, gorgeous piece of jewelry. I remember her wearing it as her own wedding band... it's full of good memories.

Grandma also lent me this ring as my Something Old and Something Borrowed on my wedding day. She'd lent it to me with a white ribbon tied around it and I pinned it under my dress with my sorority pin. I remember obsessively checking it all night to make sure I didn't lose it!
My sister and I went to visit Grandpa last winter, and we were looking through a bunch of Grandma's jewelry. "Oh, fun beads!" I exclaimed, and Grandpa goes "Good price! Free! Take it with you!" My Grandmother had a love of collections, and there was an impressive amount of jewelry (costume and otherwise) that we were looking through. I think Grandpa was glad to pass some along! And I was so glad to have some fun beads to wear out and about. :)
I got this ring on that same visit with Katie. I have no idea what the stone on this ring is - it could be a piece of glass for all I know. However, I love this piece! The ring itself is nice and delicate and the stone is big and fun. I was going to have this ring sized to my right ring finger and dipped in white gold until I got the next piece. Now I keep it and wear it on my right middle finger whenever I'm wearing clothes with gold accents. This ring is just so fun... and my sister Katie wore it as her Something Blue at her wedding. It was so nice to have a piece of Grandma's jewelry that I could loan out to her for a special occasion like that.
This is the piece I wear the most. My grandfather gave it to my Mom, but she didn't really ever wear it. At Christmas, she asked me if I would want it. I loved it! I had it sized to my right ring finger and dipped in white gold (it was originally yellow gold). The work to the ring wasn't cheap, but now I have an amazing ring that I wear very often on my right hand. And I get TONS of compliments on it - people are always asking me where I got it and saying how pretty they think it is. It's nice to reply that it's vintage and was my grandmother's, and even nicer to have something of hers that I can wear all the time. I love having a lovely reminder of her with me!
So those are jewelry I inherited from Grandma. It's so nice to have these as reminders of her, and fun to imagine passing them down to my own kids or grand-kids someday!