I have a vase exactly like this one – except that the etching says “Robert Gray – State Fair – 1911. It was given to me by my father who always told me that his father, Robert Gray, got it at the Tennessee State Fair when he was a young man. Even the writing looks like the same hand lettered it. Therefore I believe that the ‘Howard Patterson’ on Ms. Clark’s vase was the name of the person who originally bought/won/or otherwise obtained it in 1911 in a city called Meridian. (I would like to look this well-preserved when I am 100 years old.):P