Nell Minow

My mother, Josephine Baskin Minow, collected antiques and among her finest pieces were outstanding examples of porcelain. The antique china was beautifully displayed in our old house, in two cabinets that were built into the corners of the dining room, with little lights installed to illuminate them so they glowed.

When I was 12, I won a prize at a booth on the carnival midway at Chicago's Riverview amusement park. It was a little cream pitcher, and I thought it was very elegant. I showed it to Mom, waiting for her verdict as she looked it over speculatively. "I think this would look very nice on the shelf with the rest of the china," she said, and she put it next to her most priceless pieces, over a century old.

There were many dinner parties while that Riverview pitcher sat on the shelf, and many connoisseurs who noticed her collection. My mother never once put it away or joked about the pitcher, even if someone admired it. She always tells us, "If anyone pays you a compliment, just lower your eyes and say, 'Thank you.'" The pitcher stayed there until my sisters and I grew up and my parents sold the house.

I did not take many things when my parents moved out, but I did ask for the little pitcher. It now stays on my own shelf of precious ceramics, clay creations made by our children when they were in grade school. I still think it looks elegant. I am grateful to my mom for giving my prize a place of honor. But I am most grateful for her lesson that the value of anything does not depend on what other people think it is worth, but on what it means to you.