I went to a family wedding on Saturday. What a beautiful day for a wedding! The weather was as gorgeous as the bride. I had a great time and had a chance to see family that I haven't seen in many years.Aunt Julie was there and we had a chance to chat a bit. I asked her about "dish night". She lived in the same west-side Detroit neighborhood where my mom lived. She confirmed that the Kramer Theater was the place to go on dish night, which was usually on Tuesday evenings. Admission was $.10 to get in to see a movie and get your free dish. Evidently the theater posted which type of pieces where given out ahead of time. It sounds like "big bowl night" (serving piece) was very popular, more so than "saucer night".
Aunt Julie said that when one of the ladies dropped her dish during the movie (which was inevitable I guess) everyone would break out in applause. I didn't think to ask her if the dish was replaced by the theater owners or not.
She did confirm for me that a given theater would give out dishes of all one pattern. So you could collect a whole set if you went to the movies faithfully. I'm more convinced than ever that my mother's set of dinnerware came from the Kramer Theater. I'd just like to get someone to confirm that her pattern was in fact given away at "dish night". Still working on that...
[Cousin Simone, if you're reading this, email me at imjasia at yahoo dot com. I forgot to get your email address and I want to send you the link to the private photo album of wedding pictures I uploaded to the web.]
