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Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 1998-03 > 0890415425


From: "Virginia W. Beck" <>
Subject: Re: Thrifty Scottish or Irish Savers Or is that Dust collectors?
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 09:37:05 -0800


-----Original Message-----
From: Gail Brown <>
To: PNaish <>
Cc: <>
Date: Friday, March 20, 1998 7:21 AM
Subject: Re: Thrifty Scottish or Irish Savers Or is that Dust collectors?

>Anybody else have dresses/shirts made out of flour sacks as a child?<
I didn't wear them, but my mother knew about them. She told me some flour
companies used printed cotton sacks so the dresses made from them would be
prettier.
I don't think any particular heritage has a lock on being thrifty .... it
just comes from being dirt-poor and having to get maximum use out of every
single possession. Clothes were passed down & resewn until worn out, then
made into quilts, old sweaters were unraveled and made into socks, etc. I
have mentioned my grandmother (the one left with nine girls to support)
before. Her heritage was 1/2 Norwegian & 1/2 English (surnames Johnson &
York; she married Julius Otto, 100% German). She sewed all the girls
clothing and knitted their socks and sweaters after working all day. My
mother once told me that, as a child, she had never seen her mother asleep!
She was still busy when the girls went to bed, and up before they awakened.
She had it a little tougher than most, but big families, hard work and
frugality was the norm for most of our immigrant ancestors, and they took it
for granted. She did have a few years of relatively "easy living" before
she died at age 62. As the girls became old enough, they helped with the
work, and some got paying jobs. The second oldest sister married a
wonderful, caring man who took both financial and personal responsibility
for the younger children, and became their father figure. I regret that I
did not know any of my grandparents. Three died before I was born. The only
survivor was the old #*&! (use your own expletive) who deserted his family.
He lived to age 95, and an older daughter took him in and cared for him the
last 10 years of his life. I never met him. Ginia.

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