In the 17th century, when people courageously planned to move across the Atlantic to a land where “wildemen” and “wildewomen” roamed around in their bare skin, a major decision was what to take along. Grandma’s lace handkerchief could make the trip, but a stoneware thunder mug probably was too heavy; heavy pottery could be made after arrival in America. Of course, that would depend on whether there would be clay and a potter who could make jars and jugs -- and thunder mugs.

Craftsmen were essential in every community when this country was a vast wilderness. Tinners, carpenters, leather workers, weavers, blacksmiths and potters created items for home and farm. They brought or made the necessary tools to fabricate items as needs arose. Some of their work replicated objects they had made in Europe, and some was original because their needs in the wilderness were so different. Their surviving handiwork -- furniture, tinware, coverlets, lighting devices, rugs, salt glazed pottery and other -- has a special place in America’s history. We refer to their art as “country antiques.”

A hundred years ago, when there was a special need, a man might go to the woods and cut lumber to make a cupboard, chair or table that was just right for a nook or cranny in his tiny log cabin home. His wife could use cloth scraps from the shirts and dresses she had made by hand to make a quilt. Wool, for a blanket or clothing, was sheared from the family’s sheep, spun on a homemade wheel and woven on a loom made from walnut trees that had matured before the family came to America.~

Sadly, many beautiful pieces were relegated to the smoke house, barn or ditch. But when we revive and reuse the work of those early craftsmen, we feel a closeness to those courageous and talented predecessors.

When our daughter, Nancy Russell, was in college, she took me to Boonville to see a wonderful cabinet she had bought. We climbed steep stairs in an antique shop’s storage building, and she opened a creaky door and said, “Look, there it is!”

“There what is?” I asked.

“That cabinet!” she said. “Look at those little spice drawers, the two possum belly bins, the turned legs, the knobs~.” She had taken every penny out of her savings account to buy this piece of history. I might have blurted out something like “Ditches are full of that kind of stuff,” but I bit my tongue and didn’t say it. Instead, I enrolled in her country antiques class, and she taught me to appreciate those early crafters and the work~ of their ~skilled hands.

Our own Emeline Logan was a weaver of wool coverlets before 1800. We treasure a navy blue and white pillow cover made from the good corner of her wool coverlet, which was worn threadbare on the beds of several generations of our family. When Emeline wove for other people, she required them to pay in silver coins. Then she hammered the coins into spoons -- coin silver spoons. We lost some of those and other family treasures in a fire when I was 6 years old. Perhaps the reason I became interested in pottery is that it might have survived the fire.

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After collecting several pieces of stoneware, I learned to make early American look-alikes. Several years later, with the help of family and friends, I was able to replicate early salt-glazed stoneware. Family and friends helped with firing No. 19 last October. I’ll tell about that labor-intensive operation some Tuesday soon.