Two Rings, Six Sisters & Eight Decades
I am the keeper of a beautiful amethyst ring that is one of my favorite pieces of jewelry.
My sister has the same exact ring. We didn’t buy them together. They were bought eight decades ago in the 1930s by the original owners, Florence and Iola (pronounced eye-OH-la) Coutu. Florence and Iola were sisters and they were my Great Great Aunts. I don’t know the story about why they bought them or even where they were bought. From what I understand Florence liked jewelry. She probably saw these beautiful rings and fell in love with them just like I did. I think Florence and I would have gotten along just fine! I know they owned them at least until Florence’s death. She died unexpectedly in 1963 at the age of 59 when she died of a heart attack at work[1]. Her sister, Iola, outlived her by another nine years[2].
Sometime before Iola died around the late 60s or early 70s the rings went to the second set of sisters, Irene and Gertrude Allard. Irene and Gertrude were Florence and Iola’s nieces. I don’t know if Iola purposely picked a second set of sisters to give the rings to or if it was just a coincidence. Irene is my maternal grandmother and I can remember her wearing this ring to weddings and on other special occasions. I was obsessed with this ring as a child. I can remember asking my grandmother to try it on and I’d always want to look at it. She would tell me that her sister, Gertrude had the matching one and she would tell me the story about her aunts and how they owned them first. My grandmother knew that I loved the ring.
She gave me her ring in the mid-1990s. I was SO excited to have it and cherish it. It seemed at that time that would have been the end of sisters owning these rings. I think these rings have a mind of their own because as fate would have it circumstances presented themselves one day to be owned by sisters yet again. It was long after Irene had died and I was wearing the ring in the early 2000s, I believe. I happen to see my Great-Aunt Gert and she saw the ring on my finger. My sister was with me at the time so this must have been some kind of family function. Gert said “oh my gosh it’s my same ring! That must have been your grandmother’s ring.” And I said it was. She told me the story about her and her sister owning the rings and before them their aunts owning the rings. I told her I knew all about the rings because my grandmother told me about them all my life. She turned to my sister and told her that she was giving her ring to her because sisters needed to own these rings. My sister was stunned! She didn’t expect that but she happily accepted.
My sister and I made a vow that we would pass them down to sisters in our family with the understanding that they will have to pass them down to sisters. They also need to stay in the family. They’d better keep track of all this history and future history so this information doesn’t get lost. I am the Keeper of the Past after all!
The next set of sisters has yet to be identified, maybe my nephews will have daughters in the future. I’m also not at all ready to give up my ring yet. They will have to pry it off my cold dead hand….
[1] Florence E. Coutu Obituary, Boston Record American, 21 Aug 1963, Boston, MA, (image accessed on www.GenealogyBank.com : 3 Feb 2018) p. 3, col. 4.
[2] Find A Grave (www.findagrave.com : accessed 3 Feb 2018), memorial no. 140024168 Iola Coutu Butera (1908-1972), created by “Mom”.
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