How my favorite great aunt made me me

A family keepsake, a love story and a lesson

Jul 18, 2025

But first a note

This week I’m doing something a little different here at Culinary History is Family History, and it’s all thanks to Annette Gendler at The Past and Present!

A while back, Annette reached out to see if I’d be interested in doing some sort of collaborative post with her, and I said “yes” before she’d even finished the sentence! If you aren’t yet familiar with her writing, Annette is an author and family historian with a beautiful sense of storytelling. Here’s what I’m talking about:

Beautiful, right?

After some back and forth brainstorming and a good long zoom session, we landed on family keepsakes. Both of us are sentimental keepers, so have lots of things to choose from. But, as we talked more, we found that we both had special great aunts in our lives, as well, and thus this Great Aunt Link-Up was born!

Here’s the link to Annette’s piece. Make sure to pop over there and have a read!

My great aunt, Myrtle Semerau, at her bookkeeping office circa 1954.

Release Date: July 18, 2025

Myrtle’s crystal clear declaration of independence

In the spring of 1943, while her only brother, Howard, and countless other men from her hometown of Hutchinson, MN, fought overseas and rationing made everything from gasoline to sugar scarce, my great aunt, Myrtle Violet Semerau, walked into Dayton’s, the finest department store in downtown Minneapolis, and did something remarkable. Unmarried and thirty-six-years-old, she bought herself an eight-piece set of crystal glasses.

Not for a hope chest. Not for a trousseau.

For herself.

By herself.

The saleswoman, no doubt used to dealing with brides-to-be and anxious mothers selecting wedding gifts, probably raised an eyebrow. But I like to think Myrtle was unfazed and as true to herself as the books she kept for the local bank when she told the lady behind the counter to monogram the glasses with M for Myrtle, V for Violet and S for Semerau.

Her initials. Her choice.

Her quiet declaration that she was complete exactly as she was.

Dayton’s advertisement from the November 18, 1943 edition of the Minneapolis Star, Minneapolis, MN.

Doing the math

Myrtle had been doing calculations her entire adult life, and not just the ones that balanced the books.

Born March 1, 1907, she was too young to participate in the marriage boom following the close of WWI in 1918, and by the time she was in the marriageable sweet spot – Myrtle was 22 in 1929 – the stock market had crashed and so did America’s marriage rate, going from 10.14 marriages per 1,000 in 1929 to just 7.87 marriages per 1,000 in 1932. ¹

Not that those numbers meant all that much.

Myrtle’s older sister, Leona, had gotten married in 1931, and Howard, my grandpa, had gotten married in 1933 – both during the hardest years of the Great Depression.

I don’t know why Myrtle didn’t marry at or around that same time. It’s not a question I knew to ask when she was alive, and by the time I got curious, everyone who knew the answers had already died.

It could be she remained unmarried and at home during those financially challenging years to help out her parents, Rudolph and Minnie. With both Leona and Howard out of the house, Myrtle’s wages as a bookkeeper would have helped to supplement the family’s farm income and keep food on the table.

Then again, maybe marriage simply wasn’t a priority.

Family stories and my own memories and later research paint a picture of a woman who was curious, engaged and thoroughly happy in her own skin.

Myrtle was smart as a whip and loved working with numbers, so business accounting was right up her alley. It allowed her to contribute in a meaningful way to the success of something bigger than herself, continually improve and expand her skill set and be part of a team.

Working regular office hours meant Myrtle had plenty of free time to get involved in her community and outside interests. She was active in state and national politics, was a tireless fundraiser for good causes including War Bonds, her church and the local children’s home, and spent countless hours transcribing books into Braille as part of the Lutheran Braille Workers program.

And, despite living with her parents, Myrtle loved to entertain her wide circle of friends.

Which gets me back to those monogrammed glasses.

According to the 1940 census, Myrtle worked 52 weeks in 1939 and earned $1,020, or about $23,000 in current value. Crystal monogrammed glasses were being sold at Dayton’s for about a dollar each, again more than $18 each in 2025 money.

So, those crystal glasses were expensive, especially during wartime when luxury goods were scarce. They were also permanent. Unlike flowers that would wilt or clothes that would wear out, crystal glasses were meant to last generations.

By having her initials etched into each piece, Myrtle was making a bold statement: she was worthy of owning beautiful things, she could create memories on her own terms, and her life was rich and full regardless of social expectations and norms.

In a world that defined women by their relationships to men, my great aunt defined herself.

And she had that definition etched in glass. MVS.

A beautiful unexpected love

Fast forward 12 years and countless dinner parties later to 1955.

By then, both of Myrtle’s parents had passed away, and she’d been working as the bookkeeper at the car dealership of a family friend by the name of Maurice Mitchell for nearly eight years.

How long the two had secretly been in love has been lost to history.

But, four months after Maurice’s wife succumbed to the terminal illness she’d been battling for a decade, he asked Myrtle to marry him and she said yes.

To say it was a small town scandal is an understatement.

Maurice was ten years older, a widower, father and grandfather, a Shriner and a Baptist of all things, yet Myrtle’s family circled the wagons. My grandpa was the best man, and Grandma hosted the reception.

A month later, the two couples took off in Maurice’s 1955 Chevy town car for a month-long honeymoon to Mount Rushmore, and Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Rocky Mountain national parks. It was the first of many vacations they would take together over the next two decades and the source of stories that are still told in my family each Christmas.

A few years later, Maurice retired and he and Myrtle moved to Northern Minnesota. The next year my grandparents moved into the house next door.

I was born in 1962, just seven years after Auntie Myrtle and Uncle Maurice were married, but I didn’t know that then. To me, they were just an old married couple like my grandparents. They laughed together and held hands, shared memories and ate off each other’s plates at home but never at restaurants.

They loved each other with all they had, and they loved me just the same.

When Auntie Myrtle died in 1986, I inherited her crystal glassware and silverware along with a number of porcelain collectibles she collected. I was a young wife and new mother at the time, and honestly had my hands full, so put everything in a box and stored it under the bed.

And that’s where it stayed until my then-husband and I called it quits ten years later.

The kids and I moved into a small apartment and one night a few months later I took the box out of the closet and started going through it. I was already a wreck, and dealing with so many memories and the loss they represented just made it worse. But then I unwrapped one of Auntie Myrtle’s crystal glasses and as my fingers traced her initials, I paused and remembered the story of a single working woman who walked into a fancy department store and declared herself worthy.

If Auntie Myrtle could do it, so could I.

Sometimes a keepsake is just something to put on a shelf and admire. But sometimes it is more.