I had to hear this week’s object described to me by my mother, so bear with me! When prompted to uncover a family heirloom, she immediately thought of my grandfather’s wedding ring, which she now carries. She described the ring as yellow gold that almost looks like brass. 14k gold and very plain looking on the outside, the ring is inscribed: “Yours Forever Marie, 9/23/51” My mother told me that his father, my great grandfather, was a barber in Ridgewood, Queens and a customer that came into the barber shop was the jewelry salesman who sold him the ring. Money was tight and the ring was more affordable because they bought it from a family friend. My grandfather couldn’t even tell me how much he actually spent on the ring.
Now what I find most interesting about my grandparents is their names. Both of them come from Italian families, and my grandmother’s birthname is Maria Olivia Carbone. My grandfather’s name is Angelo Ales. For some strange reason, the names that most people actually refer to them as are not Maria and Angelo, but rather Marie and Al. My grandmother had more nicknames than just Marie. Her siblings actually called her Mary, her driver’s license said Mary, and her extended family called her Mimi. She referred to herself as Marie and signed her name as Marie, even though her mother apparently had given her the name Maria. This ring is inscribed “Marie”, so that indeed seems to be the name she wished to be refered to. However, when she was alive and I was around both of my grandparents, Al called her “Honey” so much you’d think that he would have had that petname inscribed on the ring. She called him “Albert” when she was mad. No one ever refers to him as Angelo, except for legal forms.
My grandmother died in 2009 at 83 years old. Their marriage lasted for 58 years. My grandfather is still alive and obviously does not wear the ring anymore, since my mother has it. My aunt wears my grandmother’s matching wedding band around her neck and my mom keeps my grandfather’s, and one day it will belong to me. Unfortunately the words inscribed on the ring did not really hold up to their promise. Even though the marriage lasted for almost 60 years, my grandfather was most certainly not Marie’s forever because a year after her death, he bought another woman flowers on Valentine’s day. I don’t really blame my grandfather for wanting to move on with his life, I just find his word choice for the inscription quite humorous. It’s interesting that the inscription of the ring was so wrong on so many accounts, not even having my grandmother’s actual name inside of it.
The Materials of History, Thought, and Art 
Fascinating. Were your grandparents first-generation Americans? That might explain the name change. The concept of the “forever” is interesting as well, if only because it’s such a commonly-used phrase that, like in your grandfather ‘s case, rarely holds up.
I also come from an Italian family, and it’s so large and so many people have the same birth name that we rarely go by our real names. I had an Aunt Pins – her real names was actually Francis, but there were already a few of those. I wonder if this is the case with your grandmother? It’s amazingly sweet that to truly make the ring hers, her preferred name was inscribed on it, and that she didn’t even call him by his real name when mad. There is so much to be discovered through names and their changes, whether it is for legal reasons, mistakes, or personal preferences, names always lead to character discoveries in my opinion.
I think that’s really interesting how the names changed and even made the ring inscription different than her actual name. I sometimes wonder what my family’s old Italian last name was because I really don’t think it was the simple Rose that it is now. Anyway, the closest similarity that I have to the name changes in the family is my own grandmother. Her legal name is Concetta Rose, but because her mother always called her Concettina, she eventually just became Tina. So even though she gets letters and phone calls addressed to Concetta Rose, I just call her Grandma Tina. In kind of the same way our family always calls them Grandpa Frank and Grandma Tina, which kind of takes away from them as people don’t you think? Or it turns them into new people with new relationships with us and their family. I guess it all depends on how you look at it.