Living Loveing Laughing

LSJ article for the Great Lakes Folk Arts Festival held in East Lansing ,MI in 2004
Shellie Spitzley (Lansing, Michigan)
Chandlery (candle making)
Northern Delites Candles

Shellie says that her involvement in candle making “all started along the Scottish border in 1768 when young Mary Margaret Kerr decided to learn the guild trade of her father Michael Levi Kerr–that guild trade was chandlery.” In her efforts to make the Scott candles unique to their clan she would whittle into her stick candles symbols from the Scottish folk legends that she told to children. Mary passed the chandlery trade on to her seven children one of whom, Darius, immigrated to North America. Darius continued the tradition of rendering tallow for his wife Sophia who used it to make soaps, bath cubes, and candles, all bearing either the family clan symbol or the images from Scottish legends. Sophia then passed on the skills to her daughter-in-law Calista. Sophia and Calista continued chandlery when they moved with their husbands to Clare County, Michigan, and the two women passed on the tradition to Calista’s daughter-in-law, Frances “Josephine” Cook, who in turn passed it on to her daughter Jacqueline Scott Walters. Calista’s husband also taught Jacqueline how to render tallow.

Although Jacqueline worked at a factory and became one of the first generation of women who did not earn an income from chandlery, she still continued to make candles as gifts to family members. She also taught candle making to her oldest granddaughter, Shellie Walters Spitzley, who remembers making her first tallow-based candle when she was 8 years old as a Christmas gift for her mother. Today, Shellie Spitzley, under the name Northern Delites Candles, once again continues the long-standing tradition in her family of women making candles as a business.

As Shellie observes “Chandlery has pretty much continued to this day with few changes, other than differences in styles. Mold technology has improved and new additives such as dyes and scents are available. Most modern candles are made of Paraffin, although beeswax candles are undergoing a recent surge in popularity and bayberry candles, while rare, are still made.” Because of allergies to paraffin and tallow Shellie has had to make modifications: she has switched to soy wax and, instead of making sticks, she pours the wax into glass jars. As her grandmother did, however, she still uses only natural oil extracts and cotton wicks.

Shellie’s young daughter, Searra Rae Walters, is already assisting her mother so perhaps this tradition will continue into yet another generation.

This Article is from the Lansing State Journal written in 2004 http://glff2004.greatlakesfolkfest.net/Programs&Activities/FolkArtsMarketplace/>

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