Shelbi Lamb has been preparing for Easter since January.
That’s because she is carrying on a longtime Greenwood tradition that was started by her husband’s grandmother, the late Gladys Lamb.
Eggs by Gladys are sugar eggs featuring piped-on royal icing in pastel shades of pink, blue, green and yellow. The eggs come in three sizes, with detailed piping of royal icing roses and flowers on the outside of the shell. The medium eggs feature scenes of Easter — bunnies, chicks, carrots and glittered Easter eggs — nestled inside.
“It’s just kind of a part of Easter here,” said Shelbi. “In some families, it’s just what you did. You always had an Easter egg.”
The art has been around since the Victorian era and is based on the jeweled eggs of Faberge. Rather than sparkling with rubies and diamonds like the Faberge eggs, the Easter confections are made of sugar and water but are just as dazzling to the eye.
The eggs were once widely available in bakeries and candy shops, but now handmade sugar eggs are a dying art.
Gladys made the eggs over a span of about 40 years, and she taught Shelbi how to make them about five years ago.
Eggs by Gladys
“I love making things, and I like that I can carry on that tradition that Gladys started,” said Shelbi. “It’s special that people associate me with the eggs and with her.”
For many Greenwood families, Gladys’ sugar eggs have been an Easter tradition for years. Shelbi, a Greenwood native, received her first egg when she began dating Gladys’ grandson, Andrew, while still in high school.
“I didn’t really know about them until Andrew and I started dating,” she said.
Shelbi and Gladys bonded quickly over a shared interest in arts and crafts.
“I always sewed, and so we would talk about crafty things,” said Shelbi. “I was always amazed at what all (Gladys) could do. She painted. She baked and sold cakes. She could do it all.”
In her late 80s, Gladys made the eggs sparingly. In 2013, however, Mississippi Magazine approached Gladys about publishing a story about her craft.
“She was excited about doing that, so I told her I would help her that year making the eggs,” said Shelbi.
Gladys taught her grandson’s wife all the ins and outs of making sugar eggs — from molding the shells made of sugar and water to making the royal icing with powdered sugar, water and meringue powder to the detailed pipework featured on each of the festive eggs.
“I had never done anything like that before, and she was always real sweet and patient,” said Shelbi.
Shortly after the article about Eggs by Gladys was published in the statewide magazine, Gladys had a bout of pneumonia and was hospitalized for a couple of weeks.
“We started getting all these orders from all over Mississippi,” said Shelbi.
Since Shelbi was the only other person in the family who knew how to make the Easter decorations, her mother-in-law and father-in-law brought Gladys’ sugar egg tools to her home.
“Literally, it was like sink or swim,” she said. “I had to jump in and start doing it.”
Eggs by Gladys
That year, more than 300 eggs were purchased.
“I think that was the most we have ever sold,” Shelbi said. “I had never done piping work before, and I can remember the first year my hand would cramp, and I thought, ‘I don’t know how she did this.’ I told her, ‘I have a new-found appreciation for you.’”
Once Gladys got out of the hospital, she would help Shelbi with the eggs by piping the flowers.
“We had a little system,” Shelbi said. “She would call me and say, ‘I’ve got some flowers ready,’ and I would run over and pick up a box of flowers.”
Gladys passed away during the week of Easter two years ago.
With encouragement from her husband’s family and from people in the community who have been collecting the eggs for years, Shelbi felt it was important to continue making Gladys’ sugar eggs.
“I just kind of felt like it was a neat tradition to keep going,” she said.
The popularity of the sugar eggs has grown exponentially over the years — from the 1970s, when Gladys made them for friends and family, to now, when a steady flow of about 200 orders come in each year.
“Every year, I say I’m just going to make a few, and then it’s 200 later,” Shelbi said with a laugh.
This Easter, Shelbi is shipping about 200 sugar eggs throughout Mississippi and to several locations out of state. She said she’s received a lot of orders from Texas this year, and the sugar eggs that will be traveling the farthest are being sent to New York City.
Eggs by Gladys
Shelbi also still makes them for family members, including Gladys’ great-grandchildren.
“I do think it’s neat that my kids can see this tradition be carried on,” she said. “They see that it’s special because that’s what Mamaw did.”
Shelbi gets help from her husband, who she calls the “official shell maker.” Their three children — Drew, Macy and Tribble — also enjoy helping out.
“It can be quite an operation, so we’ll get in here some days and have to ship out 10 boxes, and it’s a group effort,” she said.
This year, her daughter, Macy, wanted to learn more about the art, from making the shell to piping the icing.
“Macy’s really pretty good at it,” said Shelbi. “It’s like I’m training the next generation.”
However, Shelbi said the most special eggs to her are the ones that Gladys made, such as the ones that she made for her three children or the ones that people have kept over the years.
“I have a friend who texted me a picture of eggs she had gotten, and she said, ‘My mom got these for my children when I was pregnant.’ Her twins are now seniors in high school,” she said. “That’s so neat to see those eggs that had been around for years and how they were so special to her.”
Eggs by Gladys
Eggs by Gladys is not a typical seasonal business. For Shelbi, it’s a way to honor Gladys’ memory and continue a tradition, not only for her family, but for the many families who have been collecting the eggs each Easter.
“It’s a neat thing because we’re in a fast world where you don’t take time to do stuff like this anymore,” said Shelbi.
“Before she passed away, Gladys asked me if I would keep doing it and she mentioned the name, and I said, ‘It will always be Eggs by Gladys,’ and that was special to her. ... It will always be Gladys’ thing that I’m just happy to be able to keep going.”
For more information, like Eggs by Gladys at Facebook.com.
• Contact Ruthie Robison at 581-7233 or rrobison@gwcommonwealth.com.
