Kent County MI Archives News..... YEOMAN Goldie Earrings Newspaper Article 1 1976 
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Marcia Shears u08554@hotmail.com Mar. 2005



Yolanda Alvarado, YEOMAN Goldie Earrings Newspaper Article 1 1976 
Lansing State Journal, Published Friday, 12 Mar 1976 
 
"When Goldie mentions earrings -- everybody listens
By Yolanda Alvarado
Staff Writer
    When Goldie Yeoman, 67, says something like: "Let me tell you about the birds and the bees and flowers and the trees and the moon up above"  -- she is talking about earrings.
    She has 5,271 pairs ... among them a batch of flowered ones, some birds, some moon-shaped ones, some wooden and a pair of bees.  
    SOME MAY resemble each other, but Goldie is sure no two pair of earrings in her collection are alike.  That's why she treasures every one.  
    And she's proud as a peacock of her collection.
    "The first place I go to when I walk into a store is by the jewelry," says Goldie.  "It's a fascinating hobby."
    "There are so many different ones.  Some so beautiful you can't resist. And others are so odd."
 
    THERE'S JUST one minor snarl to her hobby.  Goldie hasn't figured out a way yet to display her 5,271 pairs so people can see them all "I keep thinking of how I can do that," she says.
    Goldie, who lives on Stoll Road in East Lansing, started scouting for and gathering earrings back in 1964, shortly after her husband died.  "It gave me something to do," she says.
    Goldie's goal for years and years has been to collect at least one new pair of earrings a week.  But sometimes she manages to get a lot more.
    JUST BECAUSE Goldie collects a pair of earrings doesn't mean she would wear them.  Take that pair of clip earrings with a turquoise half circle at the top and a purple spoon hanging down.  "These I wouldn't wear to a dog fight," she said.  "The choice of colors would stop me."
    Goldie says, she only wears a pair when she goes somewhere special.  "I am always afraid of losing them.  If I am going downtown, I very seldom wear them," she said.
    "Some of them are more or less junk and some of them are real good.  To me, all of them are something."  Most are clip-ons but some are for pierced ears.
    BESIDES ALL the regular places where earrings are sold, Goldie shops around at rummage sales and places like the Salvation Army.  Her hobby entails a lot of browsing until bingo -- she finds a pair she knows she doesn't have.
    Some she has mail-ordered from jewelry catalogs.  Others are gifts from friends, nieces, nephews, sons daughters, sisters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
    Goldie keeps most of her collection in one of two small bedrooms in her home.  Hundreds and hundreds of earrings are displayed in three glass door cases.  Others are strung on pegboards.  And some are clipped to display stands merchants gave to her.
    BUT THERE'S more than meets the eye.  Thousands are in valentine candy boxes, chocolate candy boxes, metal file drawers, and styrofoam egg cartons.  "Those egg cartons stack up pretty nice," she said.
    Time and again, Goldie has thought about separating part of her earring collection into theme categories.   And if she ever could, she might do it this way.
    She would take all the Christmas trees, Santas, pine cones and holiday balls and put them together.  Cowboy hats, pistols and bullets would go together.  Texas, Michigan, Florida, Hawaii -- all 50 states are already in one box.  Al zodiac symbols are together.
    FISH, SNAKES, frogs, ducks, cats, mice and camel -- name a few animal earrings -- could be put in one place.  Fruit baskets, apple cores and pears could go in a fruit category.  The orchids, daisies, and roses -- all flower varieties could be side by side.
    Those from Germany, Spain, India, France, Mexico, Jerusalem, Korea, Japan, Argentina, Holland, Africa and other foreign countries just wouldn't look right apart.
    Shell varieties, cupids and hearts, bowling balls and other sports items, flags and other patriotic themes, religious ones (Buddha could go them) -- the list of categories would be long and rearranging 5,271 pairs of earrings would be almost an impossible chore for Goldie alone.
    WHERE WOULD Goldie put the pair, equipped with a battery, that light up?  They drew a lot of comments when she wore them to a party, she recalls.
    Goldie has about 20 other pairs she doesn't count because she isn't sure she doesn't have duplicates.  She says she may take three at a time and go through the entire collection to be sure.  "If I'm in doubt, I go though the whole bunch."
    Goldie said the first thing people usually say is: "I never say so many earrings in my life."  And that makes her sparkle with pride inside and out."



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