Page 26 - May1997

NATIONAL BUTTON BULLETIN

obtained two other old button strings from other welfare clients, and by about 1954
had joined the National Button society. Gradually she met other collectors and
from the mid-fifties until the end of her life button collecting became a never-
ending passion.
By the late 1950s Bernyce had become active in the pennsylvania State Button
Society, attending annual meetings and associating with collectors throughout
Pennsylvania. while I was in State college attending penn State from 1957 to
1961, I remember her visiting and meeting with collectors there. I wish I could
remember all their names, but the only one that comes to mind is a Mrs. Gates.
Although I was aware of my mother's button collecting interests, I didn,t pay much
attention until many years later. A good friend and fellow collector in Jacksonville.
Florida was Doris Price.
ln 1964 Bernyce retired and came to live with me. I was just beginning my
career in the art museum profession, a career from which I retired in I 996. over the
next twenty years and more Bernyce moved with me as my career advanced from
job to job. During the sixties we lived in Baltimore. During the seventies we found
ourselves in Sacramento, CA, Jacksonville, FL and Rochester, Ny. The eightics
were split between Tulsa, oK and San Antonio. TX. Bemvce died from a stroke in
San Antonio in 1985 just short ofher 82nd birthday.
Wherever we lived, Bernyce sought out and joined the local button club and
also the state button society. She attended state meetings often and national
meeting occasionally. As the years passed, her collection grew larger and larger.
She didn't specialize but tended to collect across rhe board. During the first ten or
fifteen years most of her buttons came from friends who opened their br.rtton boxes
and allowed her to choose what she wanted. Later she traded extensively but began
buying only in the 1980s. Even then she was a cautious buyer, rarely spending
more than ten or twenty dollars for a button. Frequently, on trips I made to New
York City, Chicago, New Orleans and elsewhere, I bought buttons and gave them
to mother as gifts. Many of the eighteenth-century buttons in her collection anived
in this manner. I never revealed how much I had paid for a button, but can attest to
the fact that it was never more than $75.
By 1982 the collection had grown to over five hundred cards containrng
everything from the sublime to the ridiculous. It was time. she decided. to begin
culling and refining the collection. Most of this was accomplished while we lived
in Tulsa. we spent several months evaluating the collection, setting asidc the best
..for
buttons in each category, and relegating lesser examples to sale', boxes. One
year she took a dealer's table at the national show in Wichita, Kansas, enjoying
brisk sales and moving a lot of inventory. Later we conducted a weekend sale from
our Tulsa home and sold many more. By the time of her death, the collecrron
contained only twenty-two framed cards representing the best of what she had
collected over the past thirty years. This is the collection I have donated to the
National Button Society I