I attended an event last week with a group of about 50 wonderful women in Panora who were donating more than 100 quilts, aprons, doll clothes and other items they made to the Children’s Clothing Closet, a place where families in need can come to get quality, used clothing. The group is appropriately called “Stitch & Chatter.”
As part of the event, which was held at First Christian Church in Panora, the following piece on the history of the apron was read by a member, along with an entertaining visual enactment by another. Ironically, I recently purchased a denim apron that I wear in my workshop to keep from wrecking more clothes. I also couldn’t help but think of my grandmother and mother as I read this.
I don’t know the original source, and this has likely been rewritten through the years, but I found it so entertaining and enlightening that I wanted to share it with each of you.
“Most kids today know what an apron is. The principle use of our mothers’ or grandmothers’ aprons were to protect the dresses underneath because they only had a few. It was also because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses, and aprons 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, our mothers or grandmothers wrapped it around their 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, our mothers or grandmothers walked out onto the porch, waved their apron, and the men folk 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.
Remember, mothers and grandmothers used to set hot baked apple pies on the window sills to cool. Their daughters and granddaughters now set theirs on the window sills to thaw. They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron, but I don’t think I ever caught anything from an apron — but love.”
Have a wonderful Wednesday, and thanks for reading.
Shane Goodman
President and Publisher
Big Green Umbrella Media
shane@dmcityview.com
515-953-4822, ext. 305 | 
