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.
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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.)
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