I posted this poem a few years back and it still one of my favorites because it rings so true of my grandma on the farm. I found lots of vintage apron pattern images to share along with it. Feel free to snag and save any of the images here too:)
The History of APRONS
I don't think our kids know what
an apron is.
The principal use of Grandma's 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.
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.............
Joining these parties this week
