My grandmother’s name was Anna Marguerite Baker. As the story goes she started school as Anna Marguerite but it was quickly shortened to just Ann. I wish I knew why a name that sounds so international was given to a little girl from Missouri.
Maybe having a unique middle name made her feel somehow different - and led her to value anything she considered exotic. She and my grandfather traveled the world and everywhere she went, she brought a little piece of that place home with her. She collected horse brasses from the United Kingdom, purses from Greece, and prints from Asia. I have a lantern in my backyard from her trip to Japan. She did not get it from Pier One. She was a true world shopper!
When my family would visit my brother and I stayed in the room my aunt grew up in. It was decorated with Mexican masks that would stare down at us as we slept! When we were really brave we would go from room to room and open up cabinets hoping to find secret treasure. We only ever found one thing - over and over. Dark, golden-yellow spines of a certain magazine that was never thrown away.
Thanks to the internet and globetrotting bead vendors I get the thrill of world shopping, too. I love to design with beads from the other side of the world - the more exotic the better.
