Collection: Souvenir Spoons

Growing up, I remember my Grandmother having souvenir spoons on two racks, a bit smaller than the one above, hanging on her dining room wall. She also had an extremely large wooden spoon and fork on the same wall. I thought that the spoons were very interesting and I looked at them often. As a teenager, I began collecting spoons of my own when my family went on trips. My Grandmother died when I was 12 years old. When my grandfather died, I was 17. I then inherited my Grandmother's spoon collection that I had admired so much. I continued adding to this collection myself. I bought some in Spain when I went with my class as a high school senior. I bought them on every trip I took throughout the country through college and later. My sister and my friends would buy them for me when they traveled. I have spoons from several countries and almost all 50 states. I have them from tourist attractions such as National Parks and Amusement Parks.

I have been married for over 15 years. During my marriage, I did not buy spoons when we traveled, we started buying magnets. Maybe I bought a few simply because it had become such a habit. When we moved into out current home 10 years ago, I put all of my spoons in a baggie and stored them in a safe. A couple of years ago, someone robbed us and stole only our small safe. We had important papers and personal momentos in it. I was using it as a fire safe, never considering it would get stolen. My spoons were lost...I thought. When people recovered some papers of ours, my husband went on a treasure hunt to try to find as many of our items as he could on the route that the thieves were discarding all of our memories as if they were trash. He came back with several of my spoons and other momentos. When the safe was recovered, the rest of the spoons were inside! I got my collection back! Now I proudly display many of them in my office to look at every day. We never recovered our class rings or old coins that my husband and I had inherited from our grandparents because the thieves could get money for them. I was very happy to get the spoons back and I have since realized that if something is important to you, you should make room for it in your everyday life. My spoons can now be enjoyed daily and shared with others.