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From:
Subject: Re: [DVHH-L] Women & Childbirth
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:25:24 EST


Eve,
'Homemade' did not arouse good fellings in me during the first 9 years of my
childhood!

My mother's side job (besides the family, yard, garden,
sewing/cooking/baking/ laundry with no running water or electricity or central heating) was raising
two batches of 500 baby chicks, caponing them, butchering, and dressing most
of them. That took a lot of chick feed which came in feed sacks. Never
allowing anything to go wasted, we had feedbag kitchen towels, feedbag tablecloths,
feedbag sheets, feedbag pillowcases, feedbag dresses / shirts / and blouses. I
hated those blasted old feedbags by the time I was 9 years old!!! Some of the
feed suppliers had gotten the brilliant idea of making them in different
prints; some were almost pretty, but after living with them for that long all I
wanted was a store-bought dress. (I did have a beautiful hand-me-down First
Communion dress from my cousin, but after the Mass and picture taking, it
disappeared to some other cousin for their use!) There were 3 things I hated about
those feedbags: they were scratchy, they looked funky (not in a good way,
either), and you had to stand still to be fitted everytime a new dress was made! My
first really pretty store-bought dress was made of pale blue taffeta, much
against my mother's better judgement, because I had my heart set on it for my
Confirmation. Just before leaving for the chuch, My God-Mother gave me a present
of some ruby-red fingernail polish and I decided to where it. Never having worn
fingernail polish before, you can imagine what was coming. Yup! I was
confirmed in a pale blue taffeta dress with a bright red drip of fingernail polish
right in the center front of the skirt!!!! OOOO-OOH! --I so did not want to
have to tell my mother about that! But out came the scissors, needle, thread, and
with a snip,snip she had quickly cut a little piece off the inside hem and
appliqued it over the horrible red, just in time for church. I was of course
mortified and was sure everyone could see my little patch job, but on
reconsidering that day, most people probably were not nearly as offended by the patch as
I was, or as embarrased as my mother was (the gossips, you know!) with a
daughter who had to wear a patched dress for her Confirmation. :-)
Alice in Michigan

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