History Corner--Where
Have All the Charm Strings Gone?
by Terri Horton, CSBS Historian
As I looked through the
California State Button Society (CSBS) scrapbooks last year, I noticed many
wonderful newspaper articles and photographs about button collectors “back in
the day”. At first I wasn’t very
interested in reading some of the “newer” scrapbooks such as those from the
1970’s and 1980’s because they are contemporary to my own life. However, I soon realized that many contain
stories about collectors who were born in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s and
were the little girls who made charm strings and later grew up to be the
pioneers of button collecting!
Charm String, Heart
String, Charm Necklace or simply Button Chain or Button String...I’d like to
share some of the interesting scrapbook threads I unraveled from these books,
and I hope that someday these clues might lead to “the rest of the story” about
this special form of button collecting.
A 1943 Los Angeles
Times article features a photo of Lillian Krigbaum wearing a charm string
of 1000 buttons. The article tells us that “mothers used to start the strings
for their daughters” and that, as we already know, these often became the start
of a collection that grew well past the traditional 999. Let’s see where some of these collections are
identified in more detail.
A San Gabriel Valley
area newspaper story from December 13, 1953 shows Mrs. Harry E. Walker, 80
years old, of San Dimas. She is holding
a “button string” estimated to be 100 years old. Mrs. Walker told the reporter that some of
her collection of over 5,000 buttons were from a charm string she had when she
was a child. She was a member of the Helen B. Moody Button club of Santa
Monica, Los Angeles Button club, California State Button Society and the National
Button Society, and began collecting in 1942.
Another photo features Mr. and Mrs. Walker, married 61 years, holding the
charm string. The caption indicates that
together they had over 10,000 buttons! Also
in the 1950’s scrapbook is an original photo given to the CSBS commemorating an
August 19, 1956 Los Angeles Examiner article (see attached). Mrs. Harry Walker is pictured among thousands
of buttons and when you look closely you can see that one of her lamps is a adorned
with a charm string! Mrs. Walker was
probably born in the 1870’s, and must have been a wonderful resource about button
history. It would be wonderful to know
where the charm string is now…Are there stories recorded anywhere else? Who is the new caretaker of the buttons?
Mr. and Mrs. Walker
A wonderful uncredited
clipping in the same book tells about former Corona mayor C. R. Miller who
owned what is described as “the probable world record button charm string,
which is over 50 feet long.” The story
goes on to tell about Mira Loma resident Mrs. Rosamond Watkins, seventy-nine, who
gave the mayor a two foot long charm string that she made when she was 6-7 years
old. She said that “in those days…the
girls used to sit on the “horse blocks” in front of their homes and trade
buttons. At that time, almost all of the
little girls her age pursued the hobby”.
A photo shows the mayor and Mrs. Watkins with her charm string. In the same scrap book, a January 18, 1953
article, perhaps from the LA Times, shows a photo of Mrs. Harry Ledig of Alta
Loma and her “button chain”. There is no
further information about Mrs. Ledig, so we are also left to wonder about the
history of her string.
Also in the 1950’s scrap
book we learn that the National Button Show was held in Long Beach in
1953. A photo included with that
memorabilia is of a young woman named Vicki Heinzerling. She is holding up a “heartstring of buttons
found at Ft. Ticonderoga in 1870. It
recalls a maidenly 18th century practice of stringing up to 999
buttons for the hope chest. Button No.
1000 being added with the matrimonial conquest of a colonist.” This is the first mention I have seen of the
term “heartstring” or the claim that this was a practice as old as the 18th
century! It is likely that there is some
journalistic error in the caption, as all other references I know of link the
start of this popular pastime of charm strings to the Victorian Era.
In a 1980 article about
the Goleta Valley Button Club I learned that 74 year old Chris Munter had
recently acquired a “prize possession”, “a button string, dating back to the
days when everyone took the worth of a button for granted”. Ms. Munter bought the string from a friend
who found it in her attic. Chris restrung
it but “pulled the most exquisite buttons for her competition displays”. Another article, from an unknown source in
1973, tells us that Bernyce Mahey from the Jacksonville area said her first “good
find” was a string of over 200 buttons.
She later acquired a string of 400 buttons, but lamented that she took
them both apart and that the value would have been greater if they were left
intact.
Other references tell us
about Helen B. Moody of Santa Monica.
She was a member of the Los Angeles button club whose “hobby started
when, as a Nebraska school teacher, her pupils rewarded her with “charm strings”
of buttons. She said, “I started to collect in earnest in 1912 when Dr.
Moody and I built our Santa Monica home.” Wouldn’t we all love to have a friend with a
treasure like that in their attic?! In
a clipping from 11/11/66 we learn of Mrs. Ray Adams who “possesses a charm string of
buttons, one of which is from a Confederate uniform of Civil War days”. Finally, a more “recent” newspaper article from
August 1991 says that “Members of the Sacramento Button Club really
buttoned on to newcomer Kay Meier after she showed them the 7-foot-long button
“charm strings” her husband brought home from an auction. Meier’s charm strings
are about 100 years old”.
The scrapbooks include some
out-of-state newspaper articles that also have references to charm
strings. The Denver Post in 1956
(?) mentions Mrs. A. C. Swainson, who “started her collection about 10 years
ago, using her grandmother’s charm necklace as the basis”. And The
Denver Post, 4/17/69 tells about Mrs. Louis B. Hough who “inherited a charm
string from her sister.” I wonder how
many of us have plans for passing down our own special buttons. Do those in our families know the history and
importance of our collections or will our strings and boxes and frames of
buttons be scattered and left unidentified and undervalued?
So, perhaps there are
names here that are familiar to you.
Maybe you were a member of the Sacramento club in the 1990’s and have
seen Kay’s charm string! After all, the
1990’s weren’t THAT long ago! Some of
the CSBS button “history” is still actually fresh in our member’s minds. However, do any of you know where the charm strings
of the past are? The 1940’s stories are
now seventy years old! I would like to
challenge each of you to share photos and stories of the charm strings that you
own. We have enjoyed several recent
stories in the Brief, but I am sure there are more out there. This might even be a fun local club
project. Let’s publicly document this
special piece of collecting history. If you or your club would like to share a
“charming” story, please submit it to the Button Brief editor. We are looking forward to your help in
untangling more button string stories.
