THE SQUASH & THE STAMP

Every squash blossom has its own story, but how many can boast having its own stamp? Well, we happen to know of one – and it happens to belong to someone within our very own DDR sisterhood.

As is often the romantic tale of a squash finding its soulmate, Linda Chorney came to own this iconic piece through a fortuitous find that felt like fate. 

“My husband used to love to take me to Santa Fe, and that’s kind of where [my collection] started building,” Linda said. “And when we couldn’t go there, he started to look online; that’s when we started to do a lot of online auctions, and that’s where this squash came from. It came up in an auction that didn’t really have a lot of other Native American things in it; it was kind of a sleeper, and I thought maybe I had a shot at it. And lo and behold, I got it. It’s like it was meant to be.”

Scoring a statement squash – especially in an auction – is always an endorphin rush, but something else happened that signified to Linda that this particular piece had found its proper home.

“I went to TJ Maxx not more than a few days after I got the necklace, and I found this turquoise-colored shadow box that is just the perfect thing to put that necklace in,” Linda recalled. “I think the necklace was meant to come to me, and then I was meant to find that box to put it in. I laughed, and thought to myself, ‘This was all meant to be; it’s just too perfect.’”

While Linda will tell you that design-wise there’s nothing particularly over-the-top special about the necklace itself, what makes it a once-in-a-lifetime find is that it is immortalized on a USPS stamp. (How cool is that?) 

“I don’t know how it got to be chosen, actually,” Linda said. “But I remember when the stamp came out, I was so excited about that because it was the first time anyone had really acknowledged Native American jewelry like that. That was back in the day before Forever Stamps and every time they raised the postal rate, you’d have to go out and buy cent stamps enough to make your letter. I bought a bunch of these, and I still had a few of them left when I found the necklace. Once I got the necklace, I got online and found that you could still buy them, and I ordered more. If you go to USPS.com you can still find this stamp. Although I don’t know that anybody really even wants them anymore except for the image that’s on them; it costs so much to send a letter now, you’d cover the whole front of the envelope if you used these at 2-cents apiece!”

While it may be the most unique and illustrious, the US Postal Stamp is not this squash’s only claim to fame; it also appears in a book, North American Indian Art by Peter T. and Jill L. Furst (page 64).

“I was lucky when I got this piece,” said Linda. “The matrix and everything, it even matches up to the book. I’m just gonna keep it; I don’t think I’ll ever wear it, it’s not really my style, but I’m tickled pink to have it.”

In our opinion, that squash blossom is lucky to have found Linda, too – how fortunate that it found its way to someone who understands and appreciates its significance and is willing to preserve not only the squash but its place in the American story. See? Every squash has a soulmate!