Monday, August 11, 2008

Bonus Post: Anna Van Blarcom

It's Restaurant Week here in DC, and I kicked it off by having dinner with my friend Jeannette at Ceiba. Between courses, I asked if she knew about an Anna Van Blarcom.

Oh, boy, did she! Anna didn't marry into the MacCutcheon family; rather, she was a MacCutcheon who married into the Van Blarcoms. THE Van Blarcoms, of Van Blarcom Closures. They made metal bottle tops for soda bottles and the like. Stopped making them when the industry went over to plastics, because plastics factories worked around the clock, and the Van Blarcoms weren't going to run three shifts and never shut for the night. No, not the Van Blarcoms.

Anna was a proper Quaker lady, and always wore simple grey dresses. When she died, in the 70s, her family went up to close up the estate. The found her grey dresses, yes, but the also found what she wore under the dresses.

Nothing but bright red silk underthings.

Go, Anna.

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