Fearless Females: Elsie Beatrice BLAGDON

I am participating in the Fearless Females theme for 

National Women's History Month

Describe an heirloom you may have inherited from a female ancestor (wedding ring or other jewelry, china, clothing, etc.) If you don’t have any, then write about a specific object you remember from your mother or grandmother, or aunt (a scarf, a hat, cooking utensil, furniture, etc.)

When I was 14, my paternal grandmother (Elsie Beatrice Blagdon HAYWOOD) called me to her and gave me her eternity ring.  She knew she was going to die fairly soon, and she also knew that "the vultures would descend" (her words) and I would be highly unlikely to get any of her property.  But she wanted me to have her ring, which she kept in its little velvet box because her fingers had grown too fat for her to be able to wear it.

It was a band of gold, studded with tiny chips of diamonds and rubies (well, I thought so at the time, anyway).  About 10 years later, some of the "real diamonds" fell out, so I took it to a jeweller to have him quote me how much it would cost to replace them.  He told me that it would cost more to replace them than the entire ring was worth, as they were not diamonds and rubies, but zirconia and garnets, and the ring itself was fairly inexpensive.

But to me? even the holes they sat in were precious.