The Deserted Desert Dessert Spoon

It started its journey looking like this - a Wm. A. Rogers A-1 Plus Oneida Ltd spoon in the Lady Stuart pattern from 1949.

With a little cleaning after I got it home, it looks like this.

The back before cleaning.

On Hwy 95 between Quartzsite and Yuma ten or so days ago, we were stopped for an extended time by road construction. While Bud visited with the fellow from the RV stopped behind us, I walked out into the desert looking for interesting rocks. (Imagine that!) I have become extremely selective about rock collecting after having to leave behind a pile of such treasures when we moved. So while I left the rocks in the desert, I did come home with this old spoon.

Why? Because I wanted time to hold it and imagine its story. Where has it been? Why was it abandoned in the desert? Whose lips ate from its bowl? Did it spoon soup or medicine into a sick child?

I wanted it to be older than it is (according to pattern) so the story could be about an old prospector crossing the desert to search for silver or gold in the Castle Dome Mountains. He had used the spoon to scoop beans out of a can for his supper. The next morning he didn't notice the spoon fall out of his pack as he led his mule onward.

Had it been an early 30's pattern, the story could be about dust bowl travelers heading to California. No, they would most likely have been following The Mother Road, Route 66.

I have decided the spoon was part of a set belonging to a "full-timer" parked in the desert for the winter months. The couple had originally lived in Cleveland. The husband's asthma worsened. His doctor advised moving to a dry climate. They lived in a rented apartment, had never earned much money, so in order to buy a small camper, they had to sell most of their possessions. The one thing the woman couldn't part with was her mother's silverplate flatware.

For a nominal fee, they could park the Volkswagen bus that had become their home as well as transportation on BLM land for six months. During the summer months when temperatures were more than 100 degrees in Quartzsite, they moved to the cooler air of the Mogollon Plateau near Flagstaff. The desert air did help the husband's asthma for a few years. By the time he died, the wife was so used to her nomadic way of life, she continued spending the winter months parked in the desert.

Ice cream was one of her favourite treats. The freezer compartment of the little camper frig didn't allow for much ice cream storage, so she could only buy a pint once in awhile. It gets cold in the desert when the sun goes down. A nightly campfire was a must. She was sitting before the fire, eating her ice cream, contemplating her long life when she died. By the time some nearby campers found her, they didn't notice the Lady Stuart spoon that had slipped from her fingers.

'The deserted desert dessert spoon.'