Vigo County Historical Society

Tea Service revives memories.

Many little girls enjoy tea parties--I did.

I had two tea sets. One set was given to me by my aunt, Ruth Ann Graham. The tea set was an off-white color and decorated with the Lion of England.

The other set was given to me by my aunt, Veda Harlan. This set was hand-painted for me by a woman who lived in Brownsburg, Texas.

I spent many hours with my teddy bears, dolls and my tea sets. I would dress up in my mother’s clothes and serve tea to my guests.

When I was about six or seven, my mother took me to tea in the tearoom at L.S. Ayres and to the tearoom at Marshall Fields department store in Chicago. I remember how grown-up I felt!

It was with sheer delight when I entered the parlor of the Historical Museum and Barbara Carney showed me "Company’s Coming." The room was a vignette of several tea and china services from years past. Each of the vignettes contain a lovely set of china, on a table decorated with matching flowers and dainty linens.

I was drawn to a set that is on loan to the museum from Jane Hazledine. Her mother-in-law, Mrs. Edward Thomas Hazledine, bought some of the china from the Herz tearoom when it closed. The china is strikingly beautiful and the color is one that is very popular at this moment--a brilliant cobalt blue. Each piece of china is embellished with the Herz logo, a heart with an H inside. I was told Herz means heart in German and thus the meaning for the Herz logo. The Herz china makes an elegant table setting. The brilliant blue china on a white table cloth is breathtaking. On display with the china is a very delicate cloisonné salt cellar and pepper shaker and a dainty silver service.

I spoke with Jane Hazledine and she reminisced of the time she was in a style show in the Herz tearoom when she was around four years old. Hazledine remembers Herz being the finest department store in Terre Haute in the early 1900s to 1920s. The store was founded by Adolph Herz, which explains the heart on the china and the fact it is fine Bauscher china, from Widen, Germany, dated 1812.

Acting on a suggestion from Hazledine, I spoke with a delightful lady, Avice McCrae, and she told me she vividly remembers the Herz store. She said as you entered the store, to the left was a counter where beautiful leather gloves were sold. You were seated on a high chair and the gloves were customfit to your hands.

McCrae said she bought many pairs of gloves from Herz. She remembers when paying for the gloves, the payment was deposited into a basket that was sent to a cashier on the second floor. The change was returned in the basket. McCrae told me the customer service at Herz was wonderful and the tearoom was very elegant.

Because of wonderful, caring people such as Jane Hazledine who donate their keepsakes, we too, can for one moment return to another time and place in the history of Terre Haute. Visit the parlor of the museum and pretend "Company’s Coming."