Because I was born in England, it only makes sense that I would love kettles and teapots. The surprise is that I don’t like tea! Perhaps I was born in England by mistake. But although I don’t care for tea, I am quite taken with tea kettles. I love kettles fashioned from brass and copper, pewter, nickel, and iron. I am fascinated by the craftsmanship that goes into making a kettle. I love the different shapes and sizes, and I think it is marvelous that something so utilitarian can also be elegant, cute, or just plain pleasing to the eye.
My collection started twenty-five years ago, when Michael (my brand-new husband at the time) and I were driving through the countryside surrounding College Station where we then lived. He wanted me to see some pretty scenery as I was feeling a little homesick for Pretoria, the beautiful capital city of South Africa, where I had spent more than thirty years of my life.
We stopped in many little country towns as we drove around, visiting antique stores. In one store we saw a fluted copper kettle with a ceramic handle. It was on a high shelf with a tag that told us it cost only $10.00, which we considered to be a bargain. Only when Michael took it down did we discover that it had no lid. No matter, we decided we would buy it. The kettle was affordable, and we decided it would look grand on top of the kitchen cabinet. A few years later I eventually found the right lid in a box of assorted lids in a thrift store. It isn’t a grand kettle, but because it was our first, it is one of my favorites. It has a red ribbon attached to the handle, while it is on display at the Mason library.
From then on collecting kettles became a fun part of our lives. Mostly Michael would find them and point each one out as one that I just had to have. In the beginning it was easy to say yes, as I fell in love with them on sight. However, as the collection grew, some had to be stored in boxes, and I would protest that we had no room for any more. Michael promised that he would one day build me a cabinet for them. When we purchased our house in Mason, the kitchen was designed to include high shelves all around the perimeter to accommodate the kettle collection, and we had a wonderful time unpacking all the boxes, re-discovering each kettle, and savoring the sweet memory of where and when it was purchased.
Many of the kettles in the collection are presently on display at the Mason County M. Beven Eckert Memorial Library for the month of January. Somehow a few coffee pots and teapots sneaked in among the kettles. Copper plates and jelly molds also found a home with the Murphys, but the kettles remain my favorites. They come from many different countries where we have travelled, including Zimbabwe, England, France, Italy, Turkey, China and Japan.
