One Nation, Under God

A Little Teapot or two (thousand)

Collectors Corner: Featuring folks in Phillips County and their collections

From as far away as Greece and France to as close as the D&D Quaker Box and $pare Change, Malta's Cleo Phillips' teapot collection has been acquired from across the globe and in many different ways.

Phillips' collection lines the ceiling of her home in Malta, teapots sitting two-deep around the walls of her dining and living rooms, sitting atop shelves made especially for the mostly ceramic vessels. Though the shelves house hundreds of teapots, Phillips' collection – which totals somewhere around 2,000 – is largely in storage, though she does swap them out every so often.

In 1954, Cleo married Jake Phillips and received some of her first teapots as a few of the couple's wedding gifts (the first piece in her collection was actually a Coco pot gifted to her from her great great grandmother, Anna Fabrea, who brought the piece with her when she migrated to the U.S. from France).

"One came from Sant and Matie Pewitt and one from Pearl and Tom Dewar," Phillips said. "That was 63-years ago this December and now I have them everywhere. I switch them back and forth once in a while when I wash them."

Phillips said that each of the teapots holds a place in her heart, and like looking at old photos, each pot has its own story and enjoyable memory.

"I know where every single one came from," Phillips said.

Her favorite teapot – though not on display today– is a yellow, genie lamp shaped model, and she quickly points to a similar teapot on one of the dining room shelves, though the one in eyesight is a shade of blue.

"My boy (Bill Phillips, who passed away in 2009) got it for me when I couldn't afford to buy it. I wanted it in the worst way," Phillips said. "It was about three years before he died and we were up in Hamilton at an antique shop."

Phillips said she had just enough money that day in Hamilton to put the teapot on layaway and did so. She figured that once her next paycheck came around, she would send the rest of the money to the store's owner and get her coveted teapot in the mail.

"When I got home from that trip, he took it out and gave it to me," Phillips remembered.

Besides purchasing or having teapots bought for her, Phillips's collection has also become home to several pots of her friends who have passed away (including pots from Mrs. Oxarart, Mrs. Snyder, Mrs. Erickson, to name a few). She said she has also received hundreds of teapots from her children (Pat, Marie, Bill and June) but as of late, that teapot well has run dry.

"The kids used to buy them for me, but they have to help me wash them now so they don't do it anymore," Phillips laughed. "The last time Pat was here, we were washing the teapots and she said 'if I ever see another teapot in my life, it will be too soon, mother."

As luck would have it, Phillips said she does enjoy a good cup of tea, though on this morning she served piping hot coffee. She said she has no idea what the total worth of her teapot collection is as she doesn't collect them for that reason (though she has some expensive pots in her collection) but she did, at one point, have a chance to try to leverage the collection for home loan ... or at least she tried. When Phillips was first looking to purchase her home in Malta, she said she didn't have enough money for a down payment and went to Malta's First State Bank seeking a loan. She said she talked with the bank's president, Bob Galt, and told him that she had a teapot collection worth $10,000 when asked if she had anything to put down as collateral.

"He said 'you have a teapot worth $10,000'," Phillips recalled. "I told him 'no, I have 10,000 teapots worth a dollar each'. He gave me the loan, but I don't think it was based on the teapots."

Phillip's has nine grandchildren and nine great grandchildern. Combining her four children with the nine grands and nine great grands, Phillips estimates children tea parties in the hundreds and, as luck would also have it, the large majority of the children are girls (three of the 18 are male.)

Phillips said her granddaughter, Heather Haney of Havre, has dibbs on the teapot collection some day and Heather's husband has promised to build her a room, equipped with glass shelves, to house the collection.

"That will be something to see," Phillips added.

 

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