Nappy & Keeler Household Items

Some of the common household items of the past are no longer used, and their names sound strange to us. One of these is the nappy.

Nappies were, simply, bowls. Although the name was adopted by the glass companies to describe glass bowls in the early years of the 20th century, originally nappies were used in the kitchen for mixing, preparing and serving food.

Usually, they were circular, with straight sides that tapered out from the base, with no rim at the top. The size ranged from a 3-inch diameter to as large as 13 inches in diameter. In a few old catalog listings, you’ll find nappies as being available in other shapes, such as rectangular.

Another vessel of earlier days was the keeler. It was a low circular storage vessel with two vertical handles rising from the rim. These handles were usually pierced so that a lifting rod could go through, for carrying the keeler.

The earliest ones were wooden. Ceramic keelers were made later, although very few were made after the 1850s.

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Typewriter Man’s Tower Held Wishing Chair

For many years, the title of “Tallest Building West of the Rockies” was held by the L.C. Smith Tower in downtown Seattle. The building, when it opened in the Pioneer Square area in 1914, stood taller than such world standards as the Great Pyramid.

L.C. Smith was founder of the Smith Typewriter Company of Syracuse, New York. His attention was attracted to Seattle by a Seattleite, financier J.D. Hoge.

The Smith Tower claims to be 42 stories tall. The main structure is 21 stores; the tower adds another 21. Elevators, however, were built to go no higher than the 35th floor. the final 7 stories are squeezed inside the pyramidal top.

The structure rests on 1,276 pilings buried into bedrock 50 feet down. It took four years to build.
Although Smith did not live to see the completion, it was a building of which he would have been proud. The interior was decorated elegantly, with a main lobby of onyx. The observatory on the 35th floor featured a carved dragon chair given to Smith by the Empress of China. it was known as the Wishing Chair. Any young woman who sat in the chair could expect to be married within a year.

Today the Smith Tower seems small, as it sits dwarfed by its much larger neighbors.

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Indian Blankets Used Pearl Buttons

The button blanket is a form of ceremonial blanket that originated with the Northwest Indians following their trade with early trappers, explorers and military men. The prismatic pearl buttons the traders brought were used to decorate blankets purchased from the Hudson’s Bay Company.

The first step was to applique red flannel to a blue or green background, using symbolic tribal or family designs. The applique was then outlined with the pearly buttons. Additional designs were worked with buttons along the borders. Some blankets used several thousand buttons.

When they ran out of buttons, the women resorted to using abalone shells, which had been used for ornamentation prior to the Indians’ discovery of factory-made buttons as a decorative device.

The button blankets were a highly regarded trade item along the Northwest coast. They continued to be made into the 20th century, although by then were made almost entirely for trade and these later designs were not chosen because of their symbolic meaning.

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