{"id":37728,"date":"2015-12-09T03:48:44","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T16:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/content.easyweddings.com\/au\/articles\/100-year-old-wedding-cake\/"},"modified":"2021-11-10T04:27:59","modified_gmt":"2021-11-09T17:27:59","slug":"100-year-old-wedding-cake","status":"publish","type":"au-article","link":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/articles\/100-year-old-wedding-cake\/","title":{"rendered":"100-year-old wedding cake discovered during basement clean-up"},"content":{"rendered":" The top tier of a century-old wedding cake, which was recently found in an American basement. Photo: Ronald Warninger\n

A retired American chiropractor has unearthed\u00a0his grandparents’ perfectly preserved 100-year-old wedding cake while cleaning out his basement – and,\u00a0yes, it’s past its use-by date!<\/p>\n

Ronald Warninger, from Yakima in Washington state,\u00a0made the\u00a0unexpected discovery while tidying up his\u00a0basement.<\/p>\n

Having survived\u00a0more than\u00a0a century,\u00a0two World Wars and several house moves, the intricately decorated wedding cake<\/a>\u00a0remains\u00a0in remarkably good condition, even if its once fruit-filled centre has disintegrated over time.<\/p>\n

The cake was originally made for his grandparents’ (Harvey and Inez Warninger) wedding on March 17, 1915. As was tradition at the time,\u00a0the first tier of a couple’s wedding cake was saved for their first anniversary – or the Christening of their first child, whichever came first.<\/p>\n

The cake’s exact provenance is unknown, but what Ronald, 67, does recall is that, at some time in the ’60s, the cake was passed down to his\u00a0parents by Harvey and Inez “because they had a better freezer,\u201d he told BuzzFeed Life.<\/p>\n

Ron, who was about 10 years old at the time, remembers seeing the\u00a0foil-wrapped bundle\u00a0sitting in the corner of the family freezer – and being told never to touch it. Being a\u00a0dutiful grandson, Ron\u00a0left it alone and gave the delicious\u00a0parcel no further thought.<\/p>\n

Then, in the early\u00a02000s, the cake re-appeared and found a new home in Ron’s basement. This time, the resilient, now rock hard, wedding\u00a0cake was enclosed in a hat box and accompanied by a hand-written poem\u00a0that said:<\/p>\n

“Dear Inez,<\/em>
\n Remember me when far away,<\/em>
\n And only half awake,<\/em>
\n Remember me on your wedding day,<\/em>
\n And send me a slice of cake,<\/em>
\n Your friend as ever, Nellie Anderson.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The poem\u00a0is dated August 18, 1905, nearly 10 years before Harvey and Inez’s big day.<\/p>\n

Naturally, Ron\u00a0forgot about the cake – again, this time for a further decade.<\/p>\n

However, on\u00a0March 17, 2015, on what would have been his grandparents’\u00a0100th wedding anniversary, Ron received a phone call from his sister asking about the cake’s whereabouts – but, of course, by now, Ron had no idea where it was.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked around and thought it was in the basement but it wasn\u2019t,” Ron told ABC News<\/a>. “I had given up on it completely and she wasn\u2019t happy with that, but I had kind of given up on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thankfully, a few months later, Harvey and Inez’s wedding cake did re-appear – and, yes, it was in the basement.<\/p>\n

Ron continued the family tradition and passed it\u00a0on to his daughter Jenny who hopes to preserve\u00a0the precious\u00a0family heirloom for another 100 years.<\/p>\n Image: Ronald Warninger\n\n The 100-year-old cake was accompanied by a hand-written poem that was old than the cake! Photo: Ronald Warninger\n\n Ron with his grandparents Harvey and Inez Warninger. Photo: Ronald Warninger\n\n The once fruit-filled centre of this cake is long gone, however the rock-hard outer icing remains firmly intact. Photo: Ronald Warninger\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37729,"template":"","au_article_tag":[309,304,39,187],"class_list":["post-37728","au-article","type-au-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","au_article_category-weddingcaterers","au_article_tag-anniversary","au_article_tag-cake","au_article_tag-wedding","au_article_tag-wedding-poem"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au-article\/37728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/au-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au-article\/37728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"au_article_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au_article_tag?post=37728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}