While this could be directed at me for my extended absence from this blog, I am the one asking the question.
This past month I decided that I was SO tired of painting and bit the bullet. I hired a guy and his crew to come in and finish up a couple of hallways (manageable for me) and a stairwell (not a chance). The night before he came, the mister and I moved all the furnishings and art out of the way. One of the last things we moved was a very heavy quarter-sawn oak dresser from the end of one of those halls. The bottom drawer is filled with genealogy paperwork—whew! I sat down in the floor after we moved it out of harm’s way and was intrigued by what appeared to be a label on the back of the dresser.
But wait—I am getting ahead of myself. When the mister and I built our previous home it was quite traditional in style and I owned my fair share of antiques. Shortly after we moved in to that house, nearly 20 years ago, we attended an auction one Friday night in a small town in west Tennessee. I purchased this dresser for less than $100 and was happy to take it home. I realized that this three drawer dresser had started out life looking a bit different since someone had removed the original attached mirror. That was fine with me because I intended to use it to store my tablecloths and so forth in my kitchen eating area. It would also go very well with the quarter-sawn oak antique table that my grandmother had given me some years earlier.
I got the dresser home and it needed a deep cleaning, some TLC and some new drawer pulls. I did all of that, a bit more and this piece has served me well. Last year when we relocated to the Southwest, the home that we purchased was much more modern in style. I opted to sort out my furnishings and kept but a few things with that table and dresser being among them. While my old kitchen area had a blank wall that I could put this dresser against, this new kitchen did not. At that point I very nearly decided to sell it but then decided that it could go at the end of a hall upstairs (it looks very nice there, I might add).
Back to me resting after the grueling relocation of said dresser-pant! pant! I spy this paper label on the back of the dresser and begin examining it. Not sure how I never noticed it before other than I was always in a hurry to get on to the next thing. This time I was going to pay attention!
See? It even says it is a dresser. I could also see that Mabel was written in pencil on two of the back sections. But let’s take a closer look at that label.
Shoemakersville? That didn’t even sound like a real place to me, but it is! It is located about 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia. This dresser was manufactured by the Larkin company from Buffalo, New York and I had never heard of them. I did a bit of poking around on the web and was amazed by what I found. The company was started as a soap company in 1875 but evolved into a premium driven company with furnishings and many other items being earned by the Larkinites. For a more detailed and very interesting bit of background about the Larkin company, please follow this link: Larkin
So now I understood that this dresser was an earned premium for the sale of other Larkin items such as coffee, spices, soap and linens. If you would like to take a look at one of their catalogs, you can find the 1924 Spring and Summer edition here: Catalog
Yay Mrs. Becker! You must have been a busy lady and what a great dresser you earned. I haven’t been able to find a photo of what the dresser model 10150-100 looked like when it was originally manufactured. I haven’t been able to find out much about the Becker family either but here is what little I do know. Lyman Becker was born in 1869 and he married Ellen Katie Mengel (b. 1877) in 1895. They lived in Shoemakersville, Berks, Pennsylvania until they appeared in the 1930 census in Maidencreek township. They had four children, Ralph L. in 1898, Mabel Mahala in 1904, Mamie in 1908 and finally Minnie M. in 1916. Now I realize why the name Mabel was written on the back of this piece. I would surmise that this was either earned by her or was for her.
Meanwhile, where has this dresser been? It came from Buffalo to Shoemakersville but how in the heck did it make its way Tennessee? Perhaps an estate sale with items purchased in bulk by an auction house. Well, it has traveled many miles as it is now residing in the Southwest and is most certainly ready to celebrate its 100th or so birthday. I think this one is a keeper.
Post Script~I do think that I have located a descendent of this family. I have reached out to them and perhaps I will learn some more about the family as well as how this dresser may have come into my care. I will update you.