My Dress

The dress I was wearing in the picture in the previous post was made by Mom. It was one of my favorites. The dress was red voile with white polka dots. She trimmed it around the neckline and on the skirt with white bias tape and red rickrack.
As I have told people many times she was an excellent seamstress. She didn't quilt but she sure could sew.
Grandpa Gaylord bought her a very used New Home treadle machine when she and Dad were first married. She used it from 1933 or 1934 until I bought the Featherweight in 1956. The bobbin case wore out on the New Home. I learned to sew on the New Home.
Mom sewed clothing for Dody and I, herself, mended for all of us and made curtains and diapers on that machine.
I also remember her buying a toweling material that was a coarse beige with colored borders and hemming the ends for hand towels. Those towels were scratchy until they had been washed many times.
All this sewing was in addition to keeping an immaculate house and cooking delicious meals for her family. She canned, preserved and made pickles.
When Dad butchered a pig she made sausage which was put down in a crock and kept in the cool cellar.
Salt pork was also brined in a crock and kept in the cellar.
Dad put carrots and beets in a metal tray filled with sawdust. The tray hung from the ceiling.
We never were hungry. We had the resources to provide foot for ourselves.
Chris