Thimble

c. 1896

Measurements

7/8 in x 5/8 in (dia)

Materials

Gold

Credit Line

Historic Odessa Foundation, gift of Sara Corbit Reese Pryor

Accession Number

2004.19.3

Inscription

“14K” below a tree-like symbol is stamped into the inside bottom.  “S. C. Curtis. / 1896" is engraved around the outside base of the thimble.

Provenance

A strip of paper coiled inside the thimble is written in red marking pen, “Gold thimble was left to Sally Reese Pryor by her mother / Harriet Curtis Reese, 1971.  Her mother was Sara Clark Curtis.”  See "Comments" for genealogical details.

Comments

The engraved inscription, “S. C. Curtis," references Sara Clark Corbit (1871-1952), daughter of Daniel Wheeler Corbit and Mary Clark Higgins and great-granddaughter of William Corbit, builder of the Corbit-Sharp House in Odessa.  Sara married Frederick William Curtis (1858-1911) in 1895, a year before the date inscribed on the thimble.  Sara was 25 in 1896.  Her daughter was Harriet Hurd Curtis Reese (1903-1971), mother of Sara Corbit Reese (1932-2019), who married Samuel Frazier Pryor III (1928-2014) in 1954.  Sara Corbit Reese Pryor donated this thimble in 2004.