Serviceable: Capable of Being Put to Good Use

Looking back, it seems that everyone on my mom's side of the family set great store by practical skills and competence of all kinds. One very cool fact I've discovered is that my Waters ancestors were also descended from the Manning family back in the Old Country (England, that is). James Waters (1572-1617) was married to Phebe Manning, whose uncle was an armorer for Henry VIII. Henry VIII! I'm thinking you had to be a pretty darn good armorer to successfully produce arms for Henry VIII. The consequences of customer dissatisfaction could probably be severe.

The client

James, the nephew-in-law, was an ironsmith, and he died in England; his widow remarried and emigrated with her new husband, William Plasse, a gunsmith, and all their children to Massachusetts. One can infer that men and women became acquainted and eventually paired off with others in the same artisanal social set; Phebe, from a metalsmithing family, married first an ironsmith and then a gunsmith. If your family were  wheelwrights, you would probably know other wheelwrights. Richard, James' son, also became a gunsmith -- and, as such, was an incredibly valuable craftsman to the colony. The town of Salem, in fact, gave Plasse (or Place, as it was often written) and his blended family a house as a perk for establishing his business there.

Wasn't that a good deal! And it was a pretty clear object lessons for the family's descendants -- knowing how to do something useful is a very good thing. There are all sorts of interesting and, when you think about it, necessary skills and trades on this side of the family, besides, of course, the always important farming.  Blacksmithing, cider pressing, shingle-making -- all things people really need.

My great grandfather had a farm in Minnesota, and he and his four sons also had a broom factory. (Their product was a real necessity -- think of women trying to keep a homestead out on the prairie tidy without a proper broom.) In about 1909, this burned down, but a few years later the older sons opened another broom factory, which was still going in the 1960's. We visited my grandfather there, and still have some of his handmade pieces. They're fifty years old,  and they're beautiful, practical, and completely untouched by plastic.

The Carpenter Bros broom factory

My grandfather -- and my mom, too -- had the greatest respect for practical knowledge. He could do practically anything himself; in fact, he impressed the heck out of me once when I was seven years old, and with his own hands he sewed the loose eye back onto my stuffed bear!

*NOTE: I had to change the title of this post because it kept being linked to a popular movie. Sorry about that!