GRANDMA FROGGER: SKIRTS, SHIFTS & APRONS

WAY BACK IN TIME:

The best part of my childhood was when I was 10 and 11 and in fifth and sixth grade (1958-61).  They were the happiest years, I had my family to myself.  We were on furlough/time in the US for my fifth grade and in public school. My mother was the teacher for sixth when we returned and I got two new brothers those years.

1952 me in a Blue floral print chicken feed sack dress

I was very excited one day in time long ago.  My mother had sent me up the mountain one day with pieces of fabric to a seamstress.  I was going to learn how to sew my own clothes.

 The small house was among one that dotted the landscape and the path that led up to it was flanked by corn fields.
There nestled between coffee and banana trees, yucca with their sharp dagger like leaves  and some flowers, I found the neat cottage type cabin, a simple, somewhat remote, rough looking house on a terraced piece of land.
I made my way across the small yard, into the home, and there in the dim lit room, off to the side on the dirt floor sat the treadle sewing machine.
 I could hardly contain my excitement as the seamstress showed me how to cut and make patterns.   She taught me how to make a regular apron and a bib apron.



 My mother had seen me spending so much time making doll clothes, that she figured I should spend my time more wisely in sewing more grown-up clothes.

11 yrs., 6th grd.- Wearing an apron I made

 I have fond memories of going to the mercantile store and choosing fabric for what I was going to make. (Yes, mercantile,  the store reminded me of the Little House store sort of.)
During those days, I lived, dreamed and breathed and loved the looks and feel  of fabric and of choosing yards of fabric.  I was in love with fabric. Sometimes they sold fabric on outdoor Market Day.
However, the excitement of adventures to purchase fabric was dampened by financially lean years, we were unable to afford much.
During those years my great grandmother Emily Elizabeth was raising chickens at Black Oak Road Chicken Farm in Hammond Indiana.

Frugal Fabric matching outfits made out of chicken feed sacks.

She was buying commercial feed for her chickens and the feed came in cotton muslin bags. The sacks were brightly printed and colorful designed materials, which Great Grandma would send to us down in Mexico.  Flour for baking bread also came in those somewhat attractive bags.
I was not to excited at this fabric as it did not rival the beauty and softness of that at the store.
Well anyway.  I did learn to make classic aprons, skirts, pj's, and shift dresses.  The shift dress was very popular in the 1950's and 60's.  The shift was my favorite dress as it was easy to make and easy to shift or move around in and represented the constant shift of circumstances in my life.  Even our window and door curtains were made from the feed sacks. 

I wore bibbed aprons all the time because I did not have many changes of clothes.  All the women and the girls wore aprons those days to protect their dresses and wore the same dress all week.

I looked forward to each lesson and was captivated by our seamstress.  She could reproduce anything from a picture.  My mother would give her old discarded sewing pattern catalogs like McCalls,Simplicity or Butterick and she would make her own patterns from the picture or she could look at a model from a Sears or J.C. Penny's catalog.  She was amazing!  She could make anything.  I loved the sound of that treadle machine as it clickity-clacked.

My brother's feed sack two pc print play suit

. I still sewed clothes for the dolls and when I was introduced to Barbie & Ken what fun it was to make clothes for them because you did not need much cloth.


I still dream of winning the fabric lottery and you can still find me in the fabric section of the store touching and feeling the various fabrics.

Feed Sack-cotton dress with lace

Loving the texture & color of fabric

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FLOUR & FEED SACKS

GRANDMA FROGGER: Born Againers Grow

Well you know, GROWING UP IS A VERY INTERESTING ADVENTURE, full of many smaller adventures. Every time I think I have grown up, I realize there is more growing to do even though I am getting quite old.  
"Every thing that lives, grows.  Growing is a sign that we are alive."  God has told us that it is far more important for His Born again children to grow spiritually in obedience and service to him than anything else in the world.

 And THAT  is the reality of growing in our BORN AGAIN LIFE.  IT IS CALLED maturity. I may be  mature in my Christian life but there is always more maturing to do.

And who wouldn’t want to be more mature when it is all about growing deeper into Christ and becoming more like Him?

When I was first born again and a few yrs. after that, I did not fully understand what the Christian life was all about.
I did not understand that being saved was all about changing.  I did not understand that giving my life to God to be my boss during that time would transform my life into what it is today.

SUNDAY MORNING

With each passing BORN AGAIN BIRTHDAY, I have seen my life CHANGE into what it is today.  It hasn't been anything spectacular, but very real.  I have never regretted opening the door to my life to God.
Yes, we all grow whether we want to or not.
And these are called life experiences.  We develop relationships.  we go to school, we get jobs, we get sick, and other good and bad things happen.

How ever, I was 13 yrs. old when I awakened to a sense of my God-given responsibility of stewardship over my life and would soon be on the path to prove that reality.
   I had just completed a difficult  school year , the 7th  grade at missionary school.  It was a year without my three sister/schoolmates of the previous years who  left as their parents pursued other ministries. 

1961-62 School Yr.  Me & my sister

It left a big hole in my life and made me very sad.  As I have mentioned before in my chats that people are ours for only a time.  Some longer than others.
It was a year of testing my boundaries.

L to R, Sonya, Carmen, Me, Mimi, and Joy in front, MY SISTERS, MY CLASSMATES WITH OUR TEACHER, MISS TIMMERMAN

It was a year of sprinkling baby powder on the already slippery, shiny tile hallway creating a foot skating rink of sorts.
It was a year of stealing  Bimbo bread and milk from the refrigerator and hiding in the large,walk-in closet to make Marimbi Mush for a tea party with the dolls.

Ediger & Smith kids, beginning of school year with our book bags

It was the year of a discipline I received for an infraction I felt was unfair but that discipline forever stays in my mind.  It must have been for something unkind I had said.
I was sent to my bottom bunk for time out with instructions to read I John chapter 3 from my Bible.
 It was a gracious smack in the face.  The impact of verse 15 so made an impression on my mind that I have never forgotten the shock of realizing the seriousness of my unkindness and lack of love.  It spurred me on to continue to read the next chapter.


 June 2 of 1962, I made a public confession of my faith in baptism.

June 2,1962 Baptism in the Zempoala River near Cuautempan, Puebla

We hiked down  the mountain from our house to the Zempoala river.  Finding a quiet, relatively ,calm yet deep enough stretch of the river, I was privileged to take this next step in my faith with a group of other believers at the time.

Baptism, June 2, 1962

"The Scriptures teach us that saving faith must be a personal faith; the faith of our parents will not save us....What stories of God’s faithfulness from your past or from the lives of your family bring encouragement that God does not change and will always be with you? "  J.R. Hudberg






WAYS WE GROW--Click here