WHEN DRESSES MADE FROM BAGS WERE EN VOGUE

A good many summer vacations in my childhood were spent on my grandparents’ farm in northwest Missouri. It was the 1960s and the older people still “went visiting.” Grandma took me in tow when she made her weekly rounds calling on fellow rural ladies of a certain age.

Most farmhouses had an old pedal Singer sewing machine tucked in a corner somewhere. They’d been purchased when Woodrow Wilson was president and had seen continual use ever since. As we were leaving one particular matron’s home (departures were long, drawn out affairs back then, sometimes lasting a good half an hour) Grandma and our hostess got to talking about it. The old lady gently patted the cast iron relic and proudly said, “Mama sewed our flour sack dresses on this.” Continue reading →