Second Time Silver creates new family heritage pieces
Rodney Harwood/Columbia Basin Herald Second Time Silver owner Katherine Whitney has moved to a 1,200-square-foot location at 210 E. Third.
Heritage means something to Second Time Silver owner Katherine Whitney. She loves to hear the stories that shaped people’s lives, the influences that made a difference, to work with bits and pieces of someone’s family history.
Her word is good. In fact her work is guaranteed for life. Not the lifetime of the finished product or the customer that bought it, but her lifetime. Something breaks, something’s not right, “Bring it back and I’ll take care of it,” she says.
It’s with that spirit of the American frontier and the foundation this country was built on that Second Time Silver was born. It’s gone from her home, to a room at the Silver Sage Design Studio to the Smith-Martin Building to its new location in a 1,200 square foot building at 210 West Third.
She makes pendants using glass cabochons with different images and stamped silver solder.
Whitney can reshape a vintage silver spoon into a new family heirloom, reshaping that silverware you might remember using at a Thanksgiving dinner as a kid and turning it into a lasting impression for generations to come.
“I’ve always enjoyed the marriage of balance,” said Whitney. “I love watching the process of an old tarnished, worn spoon take on a whole new life.”
Her craft includes anything from leather wrap bracelets to earrings, spoon necklaces to spoon rings and soldered pendants and a list of creative crafts.
Whitney and her husband Dennis have lived in the same house on North Stratford Road for almost three decades, his family is seventh generation in the Warden area. Her life, like her vintage silver spoon jewelry, is re-purposed.
“Who says you can't have a new career at 60 years old?” she says on her website, www.secondtimesilver.com.
She’s always loved to create and with the new building and enlarged work space, she can take her dream of owning a small business to a new frontier. But the thing she enjoys most is the people and the stories they tell.
“I always had an extra chair in my shop, even when it was a one-room operation.” she said. “I want people to feel like they can come in and have a cup of coffee. I love hearing the stories about grandma’s silverware or some they remember about their history.
“I remember hearing how my great-great grandma and grandpa came her in a covered wagon to make a home.”
Rodney Harwood is the business writer at the Columbia Basin Herald and can be reached at businessag@columbiabasinherald.com.