A catch up post 7 years later!
A catch up post 7 years later!
I have to go through that trunk of photos I mean to scan. I mean to do it. I really do....lol!
Did anyone ever notice that was Clare Booth Luce in the photo taken in Rome? She was the US ambassador to Italy under Ike, I think it was. She and her hubby, the rupert murdock of his day, were very good friends with my grandparents and she had Clare hang out with us while we waited 4 hours for the flight to Beirut. That photo made the local roman papers. Her name is written sideways on the photo in my grandmother's handwriting. My grandparents were a power couple and very political. They moved in real power circles due to my gramp's position as Petroleum Advisor to the USA state dept. I have had pangs of conscience about the way big oil has behaved in the world and actually embarrassed to be some kind of heir to all that, so I eschewed that life in 1966 and went hippy in the Haight-Ashbury and was happy to take apart the strand of pearls- (graduated pearls were really, really out of style in 1969, except at the 7 sister colleges, lol) and no one knew what I was talking about, or cared that they were natural. It is amazing I held onto as many as I did.
Since I first wrote this, (what? 7 years ago!!!) I have acquired more Bahraini pearls. Since I wrote this, my sister gave me about 5 inches of the smallest pearls, which she had never used because she was never a beader and they languished in a drawer. I got a second strand like that one from ebay in 2006 or so with poorly shaped pearls rather yellowish. A couple of years ago I saw one on Craig's list with a cert from Bahrain (al Hashimi?) for $330 and announced it over here, begging someone to get it, since it was an outrageous deal even if the pearls were rather poorly shaped. Jeremy bought it out of curiosity I think, but he passed it on to me! What a thrill that was! Then I got a third strand of the yellowish poorly shaped ones from from Bodecea just over a year ago. I have combined 2 of the three strands with off shapes into a 30+" strand with a bracelet and a necklace clipped together, the sizes randomly mixed and will probably add the 3rd strand in when I restring them (again)
the al Hashimi strand
Mickey's pearls as a bracelet
rearranging the al Hashimis for the double strand with SS keshi from Care Ehret for the larger ones. and a seashell.
The first redo. (Another coming up soon)