I had an aunt. Well, she wan't really MY aunt, but in my heart she is. And we called her Auntie. No, not "an-tee". That's how Yankees say it. Her name is Auntie..."ay-knee". And Auntie was a collector of shoes. Miniature glass and porcelain shoes. Sweet little shoes. When she passed away, they were given to my aunt, and my aunt shared a few pieces with me, my sister and my mom. One of the ones she gave to mom was a lovely little porcelain boot with a painting on the toe of the boot of the Milford ME Church in Milford, Illinois. And that is where the mystery begins.
Destination: Milford, Illinois
Hardy Boy Husband and I hop in the car and head on over to Milford. We were looking for the corner of Axtel and Jones, the place the ME Church was Googled to be located. Sure enough, it was there. It hadn't moved, fallen down or anything. It was right there. We searched the parking lot for clues and cars; we found neither. We did find a church bulletin that listed the phone numbers of the church and the pastor. We dialed both numbers; we got no answer on either number.
Hardy Boy Husband suggested we take our investigation around the corner to the Milford Family Restaurant to speak to some of the locals. Good thinking, Hardy Boy Husband! We talked to one woman who was not excited to speak to us...."I'm from upstate...I don't know anything about the ME church". We thought our sleuthing was squandered. But then...Harriett walked in.
We could tell Harriett was someone we needed to talk to. Her bleached blonde hair, slightly bent back, big glitzy rings on every finger, and an accent that would put all other Milfordonians to shame. Oh, yes. She was our woman. We gave her time to shrug off her coat and order her glass of tea and the Milford Salad. Then I approached her.
I took the porcelain boot and placed it on the table. In my sweetest voice, I asked if I could interrupt her lunch for a moment; might she know anything about this boot? She eyed it joyfully, picked it up and flipped it over, looking for some magical sign that would tell her this was a real prize. I asked her if she knew anyone who might be familiar with this porcelain boot, or the church on its toe. She thought for a minute and said "Marge". I asked who Marge was, and Harriett shared that Marge was an 88-year-old member of the ME church on the toe of that boot. With pen and paper in hand, she wrote down Marge's phone number. Small towns. Everyone knows everyone's phone number. I thanked her kindly, sipped a bit of my own tea, then Hardy Boy Husband and I set out to find some bars...for our phones. We were in a NO SERVICE AREA.
A block from the restaurant (and quite near an old train station by the way), I got two bars on my phone. I dialed Marge's number and she answered.
Whenever a stranger calls and starts relating stories about aunts with porcelain shoes with your church's picture on the toe, folks are leery. And Marge was leery. I did the best I could to explain what I had, but she was leery. After talking for a few minutes, she did give me the name and number of the church's historian of sorts, Jean. I thanked her and we ended our call.
I drove a little further down the road and then stopped to call Jean. I pulled into a parking space and dialed her number. Answering Machine. Since I hadn't been successful with Marge, I chose not to leave a message. We were stumped. We were out of clues. We were...in front of the Public Library!
We walked in. Books everywhere! A couple of chairs in front of a fire, it was a lovely place to get lost in. But we weren't lost. We were on a mission. Hardy Boy Husband said "whenever you need assistance, go find the big desk". So we went to the big desk. Finally the librarian came up to see how she could help us. We told her our story and she looked at the boot. She said she had seen something similar somewhere...where was it? It was in a cabinet in the corner of the library!
This particular porcelain boot has a picture of the public library painted on it!
So, now we have two boots...same color schemes, Milford landmarks, same numbering pattern on the bottom --- 886-23. The mystery continues!
Nice librarian lady suggested we talk with a lady named Jeanie. As it turns out, Jeanie is the same lady that Marge suggested we talk to. And Jeanie had been at the library an hour ago at book club. We just missed her! But we have her number.
Stay tuned for another episode of "THE CASE OF THE TRAVELING BOOT"!
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