The Sylvia Kettle Story

In 1964 Sylvia Low was the vice president of the student association at the LDS Institute at the University of Alberta. Everyone loved her and she had a very active social life. One sunday she had a bunch of boyfriends (not me) over to her house for dinner and her mother had left her in charge of cooking. Well she got distracted with who knows what and the next thing you know there was smoke billowing out of the kitchen. This melted lettle was the result. Some of the guys thought that was kind of funny, so they stole the bottomless kettle and took it home. When word got out about this event, embarrassing as it was for Sylvia, everyone wanted to have the kettle, so several guys started stealing it back and forth and it became a kind of hostage trophy, proudly displayed in various households.

After a year or two of this, it was finally donated to the Institute and it became the annual trophy for "the most phenomenal achievement of the year". Sometimes it has been awarded as a spoof, like the first year it was given to the struggling Institute intramural hockey team who had scored a goal that year (it had been a couple of years since that had happened!). Other times it has been given to serious academic or athletic achievement. As a matter of fact my name got on it about 3 years later for academics. Anyway it has been on display for 55 years now and is still being awarded. I don't necessarily think that this is what Sylvia wants to be remembered for because she has done some truly remarkable things in her life: raising 5 wonderful children, 3 terms as Relief Society president, making quilts that are world class works of art, hiking across England etc., etc., etc..... But I still have fond memories of the kettle story.