Grandma's Apron

I was wandering through a gift shop the other day when my eye was caught by a colorful display of aprons.  As I fingered the bright patterned flounces and read the witty sayings my mind was tumbling with memories of the aprons that my grandmother wore. 

My daddy's mother was a sturdy farm wife who began every day at 5 am dressed in a dark, serviceable (didn't show dirt) dress, no nonsense shoes (ugly, even to my young eyes) and a clean apron.  She didn't have a lot of clothes, in fact, most fit in the big, wooden wardrobe with room for Papaw's clothes too.  People didn't have a need for big walk-in closets, you wore what you had until it no longer could be worn, then you replaced it.  To keep her clothes from being washed to death at an early age, she covered them with big, voluptuous aprons.  These were made of a large square of material gathered onto a waistband that was long enough to tie in the back.  They usually were big enough to cover the entire front of her skirt from waist to hem and nearly meeting in the back.  The pattern of the material would range from soft faded colors to bright prints, depending on the design of the flour sacks that she sewed them from.  (The uses that the frugal farm wife could make of the colorful fabric sacks that flour, feed, and even laundry soap were bought in, is a whole 'nuther story.)

Grandma's apron was so much more than just a garment to keep her dress clean.  She used it for literally dozens of purposes throughout her day.  In the kitchen it was a quick pot-holder to protect her hand as she scooted a too hot skillet to the back burner or grabbed a pan of biscuits out of the oven.  She would give a dish a quick wipe with a corner of the apron before declaring it clean enough for her pile of fluffy mashed potatoes.  She would use it to quickly blot her hands when moving from the sink to the counter to the stove.  If a guest should arrive, she would anxiously wipe her hands before greeting them, in case a smidgen of flour should be left on them. 

The apron was useful out of the kitchen, too, as her chores continued.  The corners of the apron could be pulled together to form a sling or basket to carry various objects.  It might hold the freshly gathered eggs from the nest discovered, after much searching, behind the hay manger in the barn.  It became a basket to hold apples from the tree in the corner of the yard to be baked up into apple dumplings for dinner.  On occasion it might become a soft sling for the litter of kittens that needed to be moved to a safer location.  Later it might become a sack to hold the small toys that careless children left scattered around the big back porch.

In an emergency,  the soft material of that apron could be used to wipe tears from a small face or provide a warm shawl for a chilly child.  It could be used as a quick bandage, or if need be, a tourniquet or even to stabilize a broken limb.  On a farm, emergencies come when you least expect them and often have to be handled before medical help can arrive. 

Sometimes, the apron could be used to express extreme emotion.  Like the night that my dad sought his mother out in the kitchen with some momentous news.  Drying her hands on her apron, she turned to him, with a "I'm in the middle of dinner, can you hurry up" look on her face.  "Mother" he announced, "Thelma and I got married this week-end."  Immediately, she threw the apron over her head and began wailing as she staggered to the bench by the back door.  "Oh, Sweet Jesus!" she cried, "You are going to Hell for sure!" 

You see, my grandmother was a staunch, old time Baptist and my mother belonged to the upstart Christian church in town.  Grandma just knew that her son would be corrupted by his wife's heathen ways and stood no chance of getting to Heaven.

Dinner burned up.

Grandma eventually got over her aversion to her new daughter-in-law. 

Sort of.