Once again, I found myself carving out a bit of time to visit the Community Center last month. This time I took my mom with me. She loves going in there as much as I do. She was the one that found Aunt Jemima sitting on the shelf. Cookie Jars do not last long there, but I stalled for a moment,then snatched her up. You can only use cash and I had furniture on the brain, plus the fact that I have a weakness for cookie jars and chairs and I wanted to bring home a chair that day.
I am so happy I took her home. Her smile is contagious! She is marked on the bottom with Clay Art “Baking Time” (I L O V E baking with the grandbabies). South San Francisco 2001
Reading up on Clay Art was interesting. Started by two San Francisco high school teachers in 1979. Known for their celebrity cookie jars and other items. The colors they use are listed as vivid and vibrant.
Looking up Aunt Jemima herself, brought up a book I would love to find and read. Written by John Troy McQueen with the help of her niece, Lenora, and her sister, Lila. Living on a plantation in South Carolina,picking cotton and sharecropping tobacco, Anna,or Annie Short Harrington, wanted to move North to find work and support her five children. She worked different places and was discovered by the Quaker Oats Company in 1935 in New York at the fairgrounds making pancakes!
This has to be another Flashback Friday. Who out there born in the 1960’s and 70’s doesn’t remember Aunt Jemima pancakes with Aunt Jemima syrup from a glass jar that was Annie herself?
