Did Your Grandma wear an Apron?

By

Gerry Niskern

I recently read a great history of aprons by John Scanlon.

It started me thinking about all the things my Grandma used her apron for when I was a kid.

I don’t remember ever seeing her without an apron that had a bib and and reached to her shoes. She limped from an injury during the birth of her thirteenth child. Maybe to also  cover her gait as she walked?

She made her aprons from feed sacks. In those days, chicken feed came in really large sack of colorful calico prints. Her apron came in handy to gently carry eggs in from the coop and apples in from the orchard. She used as a pot holder when pulling her wonderful loaves of bread from the oven, every day. That’s right, every day! She wrapped it around her arms when she stepped outside for a minute on a cold winter day too.

But the most important feature of Grandma’s apron was the deep pocket on the right side. On payday at the mine she was always seated on a stool by the back door. When Grandpa and my uncles living at home came home from the coal mine they were expected to drop  their pay which was cash into her pocket.

My mother wore an apron only occasionally. She’d put one on over a good dress, but it usually only tied at the waist. She was an active woman who would have been hampered by an apron most of the time. When she and my dad started their Cooler Supply Company in later years, and she was running the small manufacturing section and waiting on customers, her apron days were over.

I’ve had two really special “stand out” aprons in my lifetime. Once, when we had finished redecorating our home in all white, carpet, furniture and walls with turquoise, mauve and black accent pillows and paintings, I received a beautiful apron. My good friend, my first art instructor, arrived on the day of our annual Christmas party with that apron she had sewn for me to match the jewel tones in our home.

The other precious apron made especially for me by my mother was to wear when I was first studying painting. Some watercolors when accidently flicked onto white jeans (which I wore a lot back then) absolutely would not come out. She surprised me with a bib apron that provided great coverage from shoulders to the top of my shoes. And it had a large pocket in the front, just like Grandma’s. Great for brushes!