Samaritan Sunday (October 27, 2013)

[If you should choose to adopt this prompt to contribute your own stories of folks who have gone out of their way to lend genealogy-related assistance to others, I would greatly appreciate a mention to Filiopietism Prism whenever you do so.  Thank you!  And please do use the same photograph below to illustrate the prompt.  ;-) ]

On December 1, 1888, Maria Erstad and Andrew C. Yivisaker were married in Minneola, Goodhue County, Minnesota.  One of their wedding gifts was a silver tea set consisting of a covered sugar bowl, a cream pitcher, and a "spooner," which is a container designed for holding teaspoons.  The sugar bowl in the set was etched with "A & M Yivisaker" and under the handle the date "Dec. 1st, 1888" was engraved.

Fast forward to 2013 and an antique store in Texas and a woman named C. Pennington.  This Good Samaritan wound up spotting the antique silver tea set in the store in Texas and she purchased it immediately after she noticed the etching and engraving.  Ms Pennington had once received a family farm picture from someone who had traced the family to whom the the farm once belonged and located her.  The stranger had done that just to gift a bit of family history to someone for whom it would have great meaning.  Ms Pennington hoped she could pay that kindness forward by doing something similar for someone else.  The tea set appeared to be her chance and she pounced on it.  

How the Yivisaker tea set found its way to Texas and into an antique store is not known, but you can read about how the kind efforts of Good Samaritan C. Pennington paid forward her debt of gratitude for the family farm photograph given to her by a kind soul who also knew the value of genealogical artifacts.  You can see a photograph of the tea set and learn the full story of how the tea set found its way back to Zumbrota, Minnesota by going here.  

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Photograph of the The Good Samaritan sculpture by Francois-Leon Sicard (1862 - 1934).  The sculpture is located in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris, France.  The photograph is by Marie-Lan Nguyen and has been placed in the public domain by her. See, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Good_Samaritan_Sicard_Tuileries.jpg

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Copyright 2013, John D. Tew

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