Monday, March 30, 2009

Grandma's Apron

Before I post more pictures that I'm "borrowing" from mom and others (I forgot my camera), I wanted to share a little story that was given to us at one of the stores, Patrick's. I give more details about Patrick's later, but here it goes...

Grandma's Apron

The principle 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 wood stove. 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 dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that "old-time apron" that served so many purposes. Grandmas used to set their pies on the window sill to cool, now we set them on the counter top to thaw. This generation would go crazy trying to figure out how many germs are on that apron. But, I didn't catch anything from Grandma's apron, no bugs, just LOVE!

(Kinda of makes you miss the old days, doesn't it)

2 comments:

The Hey You Lady said...

Makes me miss my Iowa grandma!

crispy said...

Sweet. I have some of my great grandmas aprons. And I love them.