Family Stories

In October 2008, I went on a tour with my mother to explore the Upper Mississippi River. We traveled via motor coach, riverboat, and paddlewheel. We went through a lock, heard from a published author who told stories about life on the Mississippi, and ate bison at a restaurant that overlooked the river.

At one point we went through the backwaters of the Mississippi in a clam boat. Our guide on this part of the journey had been a clam diver as a young man. He showed us the equipment he used, took us through his old clamming beds, and talked about his experiences.

As we prepared to go home the final evening, everyone on the trip was asked to identify a favorite experience. Mine was seeing five bald eagles at the same time near Wabasha. Mom said hers was the clam boat ride.

Editor Gail Ivers with her mother outside the National Mississipi River Museum & Aquarium in Dubuque, Iowa

It turns out that my great grandfather was a clammer on the Mississippi River out of Clinton, Iowa. I asked Mom if she would share her story in this issue of Business Central. She said yes, with the caution that what she knows is from what she remembers her mother telling her… not from personal experience.

"Every summer my grandfather took his family and camped on the Mississippi River while they clammed for a living. They used a long piece of wood with hooks along it that dragged behind the boat and caught the clams. (I recognized one of those immediately when the guide showed it to us on the clamming boat.)

When my grandfather and the other family members brought the clams in they put them in boiling water so the clams opened up easily. My mother said they smelled delicious, but they didn't eat them. When the clams were open they took the meat out, and felt in it for any pearls.

The shells they sold to button makers for Mother of Pearl buttons. The inside of the shells were white and were used for the buttons. You can tell a really old button by looking on the back and finding the outside of the clam shell on it.

One time my uncle found a very nice, almost perfectly round pearl in one of the clams he was opening. It wasn't perfect, but almost. He gave it to my mother as a gift and she had it made into a ring when she was old enough to be earning money. Later she gave the ring to me. Because of the way it was set, I kept turning it around and around in the setting. So I finally had it set into a single pearl necklace. It was lovely, and an ordinary person would never have known it was a fresh water pearl. The ones today are elongated and not a bit like the one my uncle found in the clam so long ago."

I remember that pearl. I remember seeing the ring in Mom's jewelry chest, and wanting to wear it. Mom always said no because she was afraid it would fall out of the setting and be lost. After she reset it she gave it to one of my nieces.

Dick Bitzan says that one of the things he likes about the jewelry business is that jewelry comes with stories and treasured pieces become heirlooms.

He's right.

Until next issue,

• Gail Ivers
• Managing Editor, Business Central Magazine
• Vice President, St. Cloud Area Chamber of Commerce