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grandma’s
apron The following story is from an e-mail that was
circulated recently. It seems
appropriate to include this in a historical website. Following the article are comments by Genevieve
Conradi about her Grandma Gieseke and her apron.
The
principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress
underneath. Because she only
had a few, it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less
material, but along with that, it served as a potholder for
removing hot pans from the oven. It
was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was
even used for cleaning out dirty ears. From the
chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and
sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven. When
company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when
the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms. Those
big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot
woodstove. Chips
and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron. From the
garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the
hulls. In the
fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from
the trees. When
unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much
furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds. When
dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron,
and the men knew it was time to come in from the fields to eat. It will
be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that
'old-time apron' that served so many purposes. REMEMBER: Grandma used to set her hot baked
apple pies on the windowsill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the
windowsill to thaw. They would go crazy now trying to
figure out how many germs were on that apron. I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron. ARLEN D.
EVENSEN TURTLE MOUNTAIN
ARTWORKS http://www.turtlemountainartworks.com
My Grandma Gieseke always
wore an apron at home and she made them herself. The aprons looked
very much like the one pictured by the model at the top of this
article. Her aprons had two pockets and tied in the back. Most of
her aprons were prints with lots of red or other bright colors. She
loved the color red and I remember going to the 5 &10 cent store to shop
for material, matching thread and seam binding for her as a gift.
Grandma always carried a handkerchief in her pocket. In those days, we
had real handkerchiefs and no tissues and the used handkerchiefs got boiled
on the stove prior to laundering. On laundry day Grandma sometimes wore
an apron made of denim. She also had a denim jacket, like the now
popular "barn coats", that she wore outdoors to hang up the
laundry. The clothespins were in her apron pocket. …Genevieve Conradi |
