Pink Clouds

Beautiful clouds over the Davis Conference Center.

Grandma's Apron - Oh, the Memories...

A dear friend sent me a wonderful commentary on the apron.  Remember making one in Home Ec?  The aprons in this photo hang in my laundry room and were my Grandma Wardle's.  She always wore an apron.  I'm going to try to find a picture of her wearing one.

The History of Aprons

I don't think our kids know

what an apron is.

The principal use of

Grandms'a 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.

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 unexpected company

drove up the road, it was

surprising how much

furniture that old apron could

dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready,

Grandma walked out onto

the porch, waved her apron,

and the men 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.

Note: Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool.

Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.

They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.

(I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron.)