I just got off the phone with a woman I’ve never met who told me a story.

Sheila Hagar knew my birthmother when they both lived in Walla Walla, and she has been storing some Anziano family china for a few years. Well, more like a couple of decades… Some of it had been shipped to me years ago, and I’ve been holding it in my dining room cabinet. But there is more. Sheila called to tell me the last box is on its way. She tells her personal story about it in her newspaper column.

Sheila Hagar tells how the china ended up temporarily in her house long ago, and the journey it took many times around the sun before it became the subject of her article. But she also passes on the family history of the plates as my mother told her. These plates tell the story of my Italian ancestors. She includes a closeup of the unusual china pattern.

I post it here for you to read.

Dinner-ware storer has too much on her plate to return china