Jeanette Yancey and her husband
Hobbies fill her "spare" time. She is an avid gardener and loves arranging flowers. Her love of flowers spills over into another hobby. Sissy is an accomplished artist. Her favorite subjects are the flowers blooming in her beautifully landscaped and maintained garden.
She is also a collector. Her fondness for the antique porcelain dinnerware known as Flow Blue has spurred her to amass quite an impressive collection of the beautifully patterned blue and white china.
As a member of the Macedonia Church of Christ she has filled many roles within the church over the years. As a member of the Pilot Club, she currently fills many valuable roles within her community.
She travels to area grammar schools to teach and demonstrate to children the importance of wearing a proper helmet to prevent head injury. Her involvement extends to Red Cross where she works with donors
enrollment and recruitment. Hospice receives a share of her time as medications volunteer. In addition she is on the advisory board of the Colley Senior Complex of Troy.
A detail photo of Flow Blue china.
During the process of decorating, a copper plate transfer or a hand-painted pattern is applied to the base piece with cobalt blue oxide dye. During the next phase a glaze of ammonia and/or flowing powders is mixed with sand to create a final glaze. During the last firing of the piece, the cobalt blue design "bleeds" or flows into the white porcelain background creating the soft blurry pattern that is flow blue. Various amounts of the "flowing compound" were used to adjust just how much "flow" of the cobalt color appeared in the final product.
Flow Blue china has always been more popular in the United States than its home country of Great Britain. During the last twenty years, it has shown a resurgence in popularity among collectors and decoraters. It original purpose was for use among the middle classes. Once, ownership of this china marked users as social climbers. Today, collectors value pieces made in the one hundred year period from 1820 until 1920.
Because its original patterns are now 180-plus years old, the popular china has been manufactured with several different shapes, styles, and themes over the decades. This makes it even more popular with decorators and collectors. The most popular patterns have included five different oriental patterns, flowers, scenic designs, art nouveau, and a miscellaneous category that would include such things as the United States Capitol building, animals, birds, or even a paisley print.
Although primarily manufactured in the Staffordshire region of England other countries did and still do produce Flow Blue china. Scotland, Wales, Austria, France Sweden, and Russia along with the U.S. all produced a version of the popular blue and white china. The most collectible of the United States were versions produced by the Wheeling Pottery Company in the early part of the twentieth century. Their floral pattern named "Labelle" is very popular with todays collectors. |
When she speaks there is a hint of magnolia and the easy going charm of the Old South in her delightful "South Georgia" accent, -but when you get to know her, recent visitor to the area, Hurricane Ivan, had nothing on our featured MonCre Telephone Board Member, Jeanette Prescott Yancey. Better known to friends and family as "Sissy", she is a veritable "whirlwind" of energy and activity.
Born in Columbus, Georgia, she has called this area home since 1962. She served as Postmaster of Pine Level for 18 of the
26-1/2 years that she worked with the United States Postal Service. Mother to three grown children, she and her
husband Durell, himself a retired engineer for the State of Alabama Highway Department, reside in Ramer.
Jeanette Yancey with her favorite collectible, Flow Blue china.
She loves to contribute her time to her community. Twice reelected as a board member, she attended a Jacksonville, Florida Cooperative conference a couple of years ago, traveling via auto - inner ear problems have eliminated airplane travel for her.
"I am proud of MonCre and the "I am proud of MonCre and the growth that they have achieved over the last fifty years," she says.
In closing, Sissy Yancey adds, "I enjoy working with the other board members and take pleasure in contributing to the community. I am truly honored to serve as a member of the board of the MonCre Telephone Cooperative."
Flow Blue China
In an effort to emulate the beautiful blue and white china patterns that were brought into England from the China trade, the process of producing the porcelain or semi-porcelain china known as Flow Blue was created.
During the early nineteenth century, around 1820, English china makers began manufacturing unique and inexpensive pieces unlike any other previously available to the ever growing middle class as a product for everyday dinnerware.
Jeanette "Sissy" Yancey also enjoys painting and gardening in her spare time between community volunteering and as a MonCre board member.
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US National News
