Macomb - One Memory Leads To Another

I've written before of how some of my earliest memories are of the trip our family made with Grandpa and Grandma Ridnour to visit relatives in Illinois in 1947. I remember fighting with my little sister, Betty, over whose turn it was to ride the tricycle, but I don't remember the big black dog.

And I remember catching fireflies as well as climbing in the 'Tree of Heaven' with my siblings, Betty and Ronald, at Nellie Gray's home in Plainville.

Visiting relatives in Illinois had been a tradition long before I took my first trip there. Pictured here in back are my Aunt Evelyn, Cousin, Don Gray, Mom, Ruth Ridnour, in front, Grandma Delphia Ridnour and Don's Mom, Nellie Gray. They are awfully dressed up to be visiting the 'spring at the gorge in Plainville' around 1936.

The other day when I was looking for a picture of a Maid Rite Cafe for my August 30 blog and found the one from Macomb, Illinois, I started thinking about how my grandparents' trips to Plainville and Quincy to see Grandpa's cousins often included a trip to the Macomb Potteries.

Grandma always came back with vases and planters for her many flowers. I've found some examples online of the ones I remember her having (or, think I remember), like the deer planter above.

The funny thing is, I always thought her many pieces were Macomb Pottery. I recall her having cacti growing in a ribbed rectangular planter like this.

But a search for Macomb Pottery turned up stone ware crocks with a blue inverted horseshoe mark, nothing like this fanciful shell/Aladdin's lamp planter.

Nor this graceful urn style. Both the Macomb Pottery and the Buckeye Pottery in Macomb turned out crocks, churns, jugs and other utilitarian pieces of stoneware. Both companies began in 1882. Macomb became a division of Western Stoneware. They operated until 1956.

Buckeye Pottery operated until 1939 when it was purchased by the Haeger Potteries. All the time I thought Grandma's pieces, like this Tulip Vase, were Macomb pottery, they were really Haeger. (Note the Haeger label on the white vase above.)

I don't remember Grandma having a rose colored art deco vase like this one. I think her's was either white or green. I never wanted any of the 'Macomb' pottery of Grandma's after she died. I thought it was too common. After all, Haeger vases and planters were everywhere. The company sold them wholesale to floral shops and gift stores.
The Haeger facility in Macomb closed in 2004. Production was consolidated into the original Haeger Pottery in East Dundee, IL.

Myra Jackson and Grandma Delphia Ridnour on one of their Neighborhood Club's 'Skip Days'.

Of course, I wish now that I had kept a piece of what I always thought of as Grandma's Macomb pottery. I especially would like to have the angular art deco vase. If I ever get to East Dundee, I plan to visit the Haeger Pottery works. Maybe come home with a souvenir as Grandma Delphia did all those many times on her trips to Illinois.