Aunt Elmy - c. 1970
Antioch, California
The other thing about the Mackey place I remember was Aunt Elmy’s Garrett snuff bottles. Most of the older women dipped snuff. There were basically two popular brands of snuff – Garrett and Honest. The snuff came in dark colored bottles with x’s on the bottom. The x indicated the strength of the snuff. A single x was fairly mild, while a quadruple x indicated pretty strong stuff. I never had any desire to sample the contents although some of my cousins did and then wished they hadn’t. The empty bottles were thrown away in the back yard. I presumed they were hauled of periodically. They were great to play with. You could have all kinds of "pretend” uses for a snuff bottle. I don’t know where they were eventually dumped, although they would probably bring a fortune at an antique place today.
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