Long-Legged Undies and Sewing

We also wore long-legged underwear in the wintertime. When we were older we sure did hate this. Walking to school against that cold wind we really liked them, but once we got there, we girls would roll up the legs of our undies as high as they could go. We laughed about this later, wondering what we looked like with that roll of underwear under our skirts.

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It always seemed like I had to wear those 'winter things' until the middle of summer. One time when Spot was pulling us home in the buggy, I begged mother to let me take off my winter underwear. She didn't think it was quite warm enough. "You might catch a cold," she said. I begged and begged, and as I remember, I won.

When there were several children in a family, clothes were handed down one from the older ones to the younger ones. Since I was the youngest I just wore them until I outgrew them, and then they were used for rags.

Mother always made me a sunbonnet to match each summer dress.

This seemed like a good idea to my mother who always wore one when she worked in the garden. I hated to wear mine. I wanted the sun to shine on my face. She kept insisting that I wear it, but I took it off when I was out of sight. This may be the reason I had so many freckles. Some older girls washed their faces in buttermilk to keep their skin white.

Did I mention my mother was an excellent seamstress? I guess I have a hundred times. She made everything. Mother would let me seam the aprons that she made. (Every woman wore an apron over her dress to keep it clean.) I suppose it didn't make much difference whether the seams were sewn on straight or crooked. Later, after I could sew a straight seam, she taught me to sew more difficult things.

Once, when I was older she made a dress for me from a silk dress that had belonged to Pauline. Pauline had worn it for some time and now mother was remaking it for me. I never had a silk dress before. I was so excited. Mother had finished it except for the hem, and I was to do that. I had just started hemming it when the telephone rang. It was Bonnie who wanted to come over and spend the day. She lived four miles away and we decided that I would ride Spot to meet her and then we'd ride Spot back to our house. We often did that. Mother said that was fine, except first I had to finish the hem in my new dress. I was in a big hurry and put that hem in nothing flat. When I got home mother made me take it all out and do it over again. This time with tiny stitches. I think of that silk dress every time I put in a hem -- even to this day.

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All sewing was done with a treadle sewing machine. Mother purchased hers when Pauline was small and Helen was on the way. One of her granddaughters now owns it. And it still works. This sewing machine was purchased from Sears and Roebuck and cost only a few dollars. I know my mother gave my dad a rocking chair, when I was four years old and she paid $2.98 for it.

Whenever a button came off a garment, another was sewed on immediately. Whenever an old garment was discarded, the buttons were cut off and saved. When the men wore holes through their overall legs, we used a worn-out pair as a patch. When the men went to town, they always put on a clean, pair of overalls that didn't have patches.

I made many doll clothes on that old sewing machine. This gave me a lot of practice. One day a friend came over and we played dolls, and she decided my doll's dresses needed some restyling. So she took out the scissors and cut off all of the sleeves, leaving them sleeveless. She also did some other things that made both mom and myself very unhappy. I don't know why I didn't stop her. Guess I was too timid.

Another thing we did with old coats and woolen dresses was cut them into squares, and sew them back together into a pattern for quilt tops. If we only had tiny pieces of cloth, we made 'crazy quilts'. To make these you cut a square piece out of an old bed sheet about fifteen inches wide. You then sew the tiny pieces to the square in any design you please until the square is covered. After you've made several of these squares just sew them together. You have a great quilt top.

I had a pretty new cap and scarf set that I wore to school. One day when I returned home, I discovered I had lost the scarf. Each day on the way to school as I walked across the field to the track to meet Gladys, I would look and look for it. Finally, one spring day as I was walking home, there it was on the ground. I was so happy. It was all torn and ragged, but I brought it home anyway. My mother wasn't too happy.

In the wintertime I generally wore a pair of four-buckle overshoes over my shoes. The snow would get inside those overshoes, making your feet cold and wet. There were only a few snowplows, which only plowed the main roads so sometimes the snow was very deep. Since the schoolrooms were not very warm, it was important that our feet and legs be kept dry. To keep the snow out of my overshoes, I always wore an old pair of stockings with the feet cut out over the overshoes. I also wrapped a scarf over my face, and of course I always wore heavy woolen mittens. If our mittens were wet when we got to school, we would lay them on the floor near the stove. A pile of mittens next to the stove was a common sight in winter.

All older women had a basic black dress which they wore for Sunday best. Hats were a must. Many women had black plush coats with a large fur collar. Mother had one like this. I remember how nice it was to snuggle up to her in the bobsled as the horses pulled us to the Christmas programs.

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When I was in high school in 1930, silk stockings, held up with a garter belt, were the big thing. Nylon was still ten years down the road. Silk stockings all had a dark seam in the back. The trick was to keep that seam straight and not let it run halfway around your leg. High heels were also in style. Since I was quite short, I loved to wear high heels. I used to put them on and practice walking in front of a mirror. Some girls would walk with their knees bent, but I sure didn't like the way they looked. Hats and gloves were a must.

On Saturday nights everyone in our family took a bath. The washtub was brought into the kitchen and about four inches of water was poured in it. It was great to have all that hot water to wash in. Other times we simply bathed from a wash basin. The men would change their overalls once a week -- on bath night.

Mother had long white hair as long as I can remember. She said she started turning gray when she was a teenager. They weren't called teenagers then. They were just young ladies. She always hated her white hair, but I thought it was pretty. When I would tell her this, she would just say, "I don't see anything pretty about it." Everyday when the noon dishes were finished, she would sit in the living room and comb her hair. She always took time out to rest at this time. As I said, her hair was long and she wore it pulled back with a bun at the nape of her neck. She wore it this way until much later, when I became a beautician. Then she decided to have it cut and curled. She had beautiful white hair for much of her ninety-one years.

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Earrings became stylish around 1930 during my high school years. I had my share. Dresses were worn to the middle of the calf. Who says that styles don't come around many times ?

All fabric was purchased from a mail-order house. Most dresses were made from percale. This was an all-cotton material. A really good dress might be made out of linen. Percale only cost about twenty cents per yard. Linen was a little more expensive. Older ladies probably had their dresses made from silk. I remember the black satin dress my mother wore for her Sunday best. She had two or three lace collars, which she changed to give it a different look. Her shoes were plain black oxfords, and of course those silk stockings. (Don't call them hose.) Yes, they had a black seam in the back.

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Hats were a must. They, too, were often ordered from a mail-order catalog. Many were fancy ones with a large brim or maybe a 'boa.' A boa was a hat adorned with a stole of feathers. I remember once I was about eight or nine years old and Helen was teaching and she bought the most beautiful velvet, large brimmed hat with a huge feather. I thought it was the most lovely hat I had ever seen. In addition to hats we also wore gloves. Some gloves went all the way to the elbows and had tiny buttons. It took a long time to dress in those days. We always had to match our gloves to our dress or coat.

My sisters had long hair until they were grown. To make the hairdo look fuller they used 'rats'. Nothing like this was ever purchased. In fact, I don't think the stores had any hair supplies at all. Not even shampoo. Ladies would keep any hair they might comb out, and when they had enough, would roll it up into a sort of long tight ball. This was called a rat, which was put inside their French roll or under their hair to make it look fuller. They had a small box with a hole in the top that was used to put the combings in until such time there was enough to make the rat.

I don't think you could purchase shampoo in the stores. We made our own shampoo by putting small slivers of soap in water and warming this on the back of the stove. The soap soon dissolved making a nice (and strong) shampoo. For styling, most women 'finger-waved' their hair, which consisted in forming a wave with their fingers and a comb. Of course, you needed some type of hair gel to keep the wave in place. To make this gel we used flax seeds soaked in hot water. This made a very sticky substance that would hold anything. We could have used it on Spot.

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When Pauline and Helen were teaching school, bobbed hair styles came into vogue. This was in the 1920s. Naturally, both of them wanted this new cut. My dad said they could, but only after a certain girlfriend of theirs got hers cut in this style. My dad knew this girlfriend would never get hers cut this way in a million years. Well, that is what he thought. Well, do you know what those two sisters of mine did ? One day, when they were in town they talked this friend into having her hair cut. And they got her to cut hers first so she couldn't change her mind if she didn't like the way my sisters' hair looked. So, the next morning Helen and Pauline came down to breakfast with their new 'bobbed cuts.' Dad took one look at them and blew his stack. But a deal was a deal they argued. Eventually, dad got used to Pauline and Helen's bobbed cuts, and didn't say any more.

I remember the first permanent wave machine I ever saw. This was in the mid-20s and it was demonstrated at the Palo Alto county fair. The man at the fair said it was the greatest thing for women ever invented. Little did I know then I would be curling women's hair using just such a machine -- or a later version of the process many years later. The first permanents were called 'spiral' waves, and any woman who has ever had one will remember it to this day. Of course, the process was intended to put a wave in the hair and to do this the hair was wrapped around heated metal rods that stuck out ninety degrees from the head. It was quite a sight. The rods were also heated with electricity, I don't know what would have happened if there were a short in a wire.

By the time I started my training in beauty school many years later, many women were giving themselves home permanents. These permanents were similar to the cold waves given in beauty shops. Many people said that beauty shops would be a thing of the past. With trepidation I went to beauty school. I remember an instructor saying, "As long as a woman has a dollar in her pocket, she will spend it on her hair." I had a business for twenty years, and I know this to be the case.

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I might mention too that most girls received a wristwatch for graduation from their parents. Mine was a Bulova which I wore for many years. Men did not wear wristwatches, but had pocket- watches, which they carried in the bib-pocket of their overalls. If a man had a 'good' watch, he would carry it in a trouser pocket attached to a chain. Some of these watches had ornate lids which closed over the face of the watch. My mother owned one of this type, which she wore on a long heavy chain.

I haven't mentioned much about the men's clothing. I guess that's a girl's prerogative. Everett and Russell always wore bib overalls to school. A few years later bibless overalls came into being, which later were called jeans. Men's dress socks were made of lisle, which looked a bit like rayon. I guess in reality, men's styles have not changed so much.