This article appeared in the Winter 2008 issue of Texoma Living!.
Kay B. pours tea from the silver set her parents gave her when she got married. “This is not a fancy one,” she says. “It’s just what people used. Whitewright had a lot of teas when I moved here in 1947. In those days, people dressed up on a daily basis. So, of course, we were always dressed up for teas.”
When Kay and her sister traveled to Canada and England, they always sought some place that served an elegant tea. In London, they took tea at Harrods, and at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, Canada, a tuxedoed waiter served cucumber sandwiches, cup cakes and petit fours from a three-tier silver tray.
A few years ago, one of Mrs. B’s granddaughters, a student at the University of Texas, called her from Austin. “Kay-kay, how do you make a tea-party?” Mrs. B. wrote out detailed instructions, including the time of day, how to dress, and a recipe for cucumber sandwiches.
“When I was young, we had high tea every day for supper. So I gave my granddaughter my mother’s teapot, the one that we used every day. My grandmother’s tea set was really fancy, and my daughter-in-law has it now.