The Gladys Necklace - A Tale of Two Grandmothers

by Rena Klingenberg
(Making Jewelry Now)

My Gladys Necklace is a tale of two grandmothers in Arizona. At one time I had four grandmothers.

How did I wind up with four? Well, like this:

1. My mother's mother


2. My father's birth mother


3. My father's stepmother


4. My son's great-grandmother (who was actually not a blood relation to me, but I've thought of her as my own grandmother for many years).

From this list of grandmothers, two were named Gladys - #2 on the list was Gladys B., and #4 was Gladys K.

Turquoise Nuggets from
Gladys B.

At the end of World War II, Gladys B. moved from the midwest to Arizona, bringing her children with her.

Arizona was a popular place to relocate to during the 1940's and 50's. Around the world people loved watching Western movies, and the romantic image of the West captured people's imagination.

Southwestern-style clothes and jewelry became hot trends too - and turquoise mined in Arizona back then was much more plentiful (and much less expensive!) than it is now.

So when Gladys B. arrived in Arizona, she had fun acquiring several pieces of Southwestern jewelry.

Later, when she passed away, she left her collection of Southwestern jewelry to my sister and me.

One of the pieces I wound up with from Gladys B.'s collection was a strand of brilliant blue, tumbled turquoise nuggets. The stones were beautiful, but they were poorly strung on a piece of cheap fishing line, and fastened with a brass hook-and-eye clasp.

I took the necklace apart, but couldn't decide how to use these great turquoise nuggets, so I put them away for about 10 years.

A Turquoise Pendant from
Gladys K.

Gladys K. lived in Arizona most of her life, so she was almost a native Southwesterner.

As a child she moved from Arkansas to Texas and then to Arizona because of her father's health. (Doctors back then often prescribed moving to the warm, dry Southwestern climate for various health conditions.)

Gladys K. finished growing up, got married, and started a family in Arizona. When World War II started, her husband left to serve in the Air Force in Europe and North Africa.

Sometime after the war, Gladys K.'s husband gave her a small turquoise-and-silver pendant on a silver chain.

And many years later, Gladys K. gave that pendant to me to keep, saying that she was sure I could make it into a beautiful piece of jewelry.

The Gladys Necklace
Comes Together

I realized that the turquoise nuggets from Gladys B. and the pendant from Gladys K. needed to come together into a single piece of jewelry.

I experimented with a lot of different ideas, until I came up with this two-strand necklace.

This design also has smaller beads of amber and turquoise from my existing bead stash, plus two large-hole sterling silver beads from a different necklace that also came from Gladys B.'s collection.

I like leaving the sterling silver on Gladys K.'s pendant a bit dark and antique-y, so it looks like a piece of the Old West.

And I love wearing my Gladys Necklace, which contains the tale of two grandmothers - and is repurposed from jewelry components that also have a bit of Arizona history.

Rena Klingenberg
Making Jewelry Now