APRONS...
...The common everyday apron that Mom wore almost everyday around the house!
Remember... making an apron in Home Economics Class in School or for your exhibit at the County Fair for the 4-H Clothing Project? I remember about 50 years ago watching (with 3 of the boys of my 4-H Club) the older Mike Phillips & Anthony Long (the two being cousins to each other) wearing aprons that they had made in the 4-H Dress Revue. They were laughed at in those days since boys were not expected to wear house aprons, but they were showing that boys could do what girls do. In those days girls/women were trying to show that they could do what the boys/men could do. It was the beginnings of the “Battle of the Sexes!” The four of us pledged to do the same for the next year... it is hard to believe how foolish young boys can be!!! My sister Tina can back me up on this story. Dennis Avery, Dana Hart, Freddie Isaac and myself made our aprons (not an easy task using that old foot-pedal Singer sewing machine). Freddie “chickened-out”... but Avery, Hart & I walked on stage and modeled our aprons during the 4-H Dress Revue. We got even more laughter than Phillips & Long! Amazing that Phillips & Long became attorneys and very active politicians along with Avery becoming an Indiana State Representative (Phillips became the Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives). In politics, I became the Superintendent of the Evansville/Vanderburgh Levee Authority and later Evansville City Manager of Locust Hill & Oak Hill Cemeteries. Hart had a life-time career with Alcoa. I had heard that Isaac had a career in the coal mining field. I wonder what happened to that blue apron with clouds & sailboats that I had made & never worn except on stage for that 4-H Dress Revue? - Written by John G. WestThe Apron Pattern photos and the History of Aprons were found on the Internet & sent to me by Don Counts.
The History of Aprons
I don't think our kids know what an apron is. 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. When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds. 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 dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folks 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.
