Granny's Crocks

For Christmas in 2006, Caroline Lyman Christensen, daughter of Marvin and Margie Lyman, gave to us - Michael Douglas Christensen (Grandson) and Sidney Ann Lang Christensen - a set of painted crockery. These crocks are a part of the Lyman family history. Mike and Sidney gathered this information in January 2007 from Caroline.

Grandpa and Granny Lyman - Marvin Finlinson Lyman and Margie Jeanette Hurst - were married on June 07, 1922. Just after Thanksgiving in 1922, they moved to the Blue Mountain, the mountain range north of Blanding, Utah. They lived in a cabin on the mountain. The cabin was an old cowboy cabin that had been used by for years. Marvin went up to work with his father who was hoping to find gold so that he could finance a water tunnel to bring water into Blanding. Margie states that, “She enjoyed the winter. While living in the cabin on the mountain, I found these two little containers that looked like vases in a garbage dump.” Margie liked them and brought them home with her when she and Marvin left the mountain in April 1923. The two vases remained in her home after she came down from the mountain.

Several years later, when Caroline was very young, not over six years old, Caroline remembers the crockery being colored. “Someone came into Blanding and had developed a way of coloring. We went over to the church and somewhere in the church there were placed these deep, big containers, that were filled with water. On top of the water, all different colors of paint was then put on top of the water. The paint didn’t sink into the water. They would take the container that you wanted colored, hold it in the inside someway and twist it as you put the item down into the water. You never knew how the item you were coloring would turn out. Maybe it was a Relief Society thing that someone introduced.”

Margie also colored some candlesticks that Caroline still has. An interesting fact about the candlesticks is that they were a wedding gift to Margie and Marvin, and she chose to dip those as well.