Margaret Swanson

She's a graceful lady of pale pink glass. Her voluminous skirt forms a receptacle for body powder and a silk powder puff. Her torso—which leans forward slightly as her arms reach to hold up her dress on each side—serves as a handle to lift the top of the container.

She danced on my grandmother's bureau for years. I loved looking at her and so did my mother, who told me that, as she was my grandmother’s only daughter, she expected the lady would one day be hers.

But, on a whim, my grandmother gave the pink lady to her young granddaughter Laurie.

Laurie loves the pink lady and has taken good care of her. She plans to pass her on to one of the girls in her family.

I had forgotten the lady's origin until Laurie reminded me that our grandmother had said she'd bought her with one of her first paychecks earned in America, probably in 1929 when she was twenty-one.

This echoes my grandmother's story of how she bought herself her first doll when she started work in the mill in Yorkshire, England, at twelve years old.

The powder jar was made by the Tiffin Glass Company in Ohio. Called “The Pink Satin Dancing Girl” or “The Dancing Lady Powder Jar,” pieces can be found for sale online and are considered “rare finds.”