Spoon geneology

Obit on a Cereta cereal spoon. Looks like John Geowey Anderson 1904 to me.

 

How very strange. I've seen lots of engravings for births, marriages and anniversaries, but never one for a death.

 

Might be Georvey but Geowey sound more likely (not that I know)

 

I just searched the US death records (county deaths, cemetery records and probate) on Ancestry for John G Anderson (Not wanting to be too limiting by a mistake in the spelling) and couldn't find one to match the "All Saint's Eve 1904" date. There was a plain John Anderson whose probate file was opened on Nov 7, 1904 - probate was often started more quickly back then than it is now, so I suppose we can't rule him out. And he was in Minnesota, too.

 

Thanks for looking

Probably only a few million John Andersons in Minnesota

I thought it was an unusual piece - like souvenir of funeral

I guess it was still the height of the souvenir spoon era

 

Engraved spoons were sometimes given as gifts to pallbearers, a centuries old tradition, but have only run across a few funeral/mourning spoons from the 19th and 20th century - do find it interesting that someone chose to use a silverplated premium spoon...

~Cheryl

 

All Saints Day is November 1st.
So All Saints Eve would that be Halloween?

A joke?
Or the actual death of the person Bakers is referring to.

 

You're correct on the dates, but Halloween wasn't much "celebrated" in the way it is now, back then.

 

It was...just differently..

 

John Goewey Anderson lived in Menands, Albany County, NY. The practice of creating funeral or mourning spoons was, in the United States, particular to New York City and Albany, centers of New World Dutch settlement.

 

Orange seems correct. Albany area. FamilySearch.org entry

 

Rare and wonderful! I don't have a single mourning spoon in my collection. I do have a mourning paperweight. Odd little thing.