We asked you to share stories of your mothers' and grandmothers' cherished items. Your stories about an antique clock, eyelash curlers and even a beloved pet are as priceless as the photographs you sent. Happy Mother's Day to all. Enjoy these ditties about those little items that meant so much to the women you loved.

Time kept and well

"It's been in housekeeping for 60 years!" Forty years ago my grandmother said that to me as she presented her Seth Thomas mantel clock as a wedding present to me. She herself had once received the clock, then new, as a wedding gift. She was very proud of that clock, even though its glass face piece, covering the hands and painted hour indicators, had long since broken. I know it meant a lot to her to give it to me. In later years she would occasionally ask me if the clock was still working, and I could honestly assure her that it was.

The clock has been carefully tended to and moved with me on my various perambulations around the country. In essence, it is a very simple clock and doesn't require a lot of care. To move it, one simply has to remove the back panel, held by a simple swing lock; remove the weight off the pendulum; take care not to lose the weight and the key used to wind the clock; and take it to its new location. The clock, a very common one in early 20th century homes and not particularly valuable by antique store values, is supposed to be a seven-day clock. However, as the years have gone on, it needs more frequent windings -- every three to four days -- to keep accurate time. In that respect it probably mimics me. I, too, need a bit more "winding" to keep me going on my daily routine.

The clock means a lot to me, just as it did to my grandmother. It's a tie to the past, to someone who had hopes for me and my marriage, who cared for me. When I wake up sometimes late at night and wonder what the hour is, where I am in my life, I hear it answer and toll out the hour. It consoles me as it fixes me in time, place and family.

Linda De Grand of Raleigh

A hard-earned treasure

For my mother, a 1930 bride, luxury items were nonexistent. Her weekly "household budget" simply didn't allow for expenditures beyond absolute necessities. That made things like fine China, glassware and sterling silver all the more precious in her eyes. She longed for a matched set of each so she could arrange a beautiful table and invite her friends to dinner.

During the following decade, when our country was at war, my dad was having trouble finding young men to help run his gas station. So Mom pitched in and joined the work force. Several times a week, she pumped gas, washed windshields, cleaned the office and balanced the books. With her meager monthly paycheck -- and without my dad's knowledge -- she paid a regular visit to a local department store to buy -- one piece at a time -- a set of Spode china, cranberry glassware and Gorham sterling silver flatware. By the end of the war, Mom could proudly set a handsome table for 12.

My dad must have been incredulous when he beheld the table for the first time!

Carolyn Schwartz of Pittsboro

Here's looking at you

My mom's father owned a department store in a small Indiana city. She was the only daughter, and he really instilled in her the importance of looking good. Consequently, among some of her peers, she was labeled a "princess." I think she embraced that, really. She has always had beautiful clothing and is still very striking.

As a little kid, I remember being fascinated by a vaguely sinister, clinical-looking steel device, which I later learned was an eyelash curler. In the top left drawer of her vanity was kept this metal thing that she clamped onto her eyelids every day. It was very mysterious to me. One day I asked her why she did that to her eyes and she said, "It helps me see better what naughty little boys are up to -- even when I'm not in the room!" Wow. (It wasn't too much later that I learned the real purpose.) This did go some way toward explaining her uncanny ability to shout, "Steve, what are you doing?" from another room, just as I was about to hit my brother or open a forbidden drawer.

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