Heritage Trend

The purging begins with one closet: five garbage bags of clothing filled for Sewanee's Hospitality Shop and three handmade classics -- two created by and one worn by my mother.

A child of the Depression, Mother sewed because she was thrifty. But she was also creative, inventive, and endlessly energetic. She sewed because it provided a much-needed outlet, the same way gardening and puppeteering and volunteering and writing and directing Junior League folly productions fulfilled that urge.

A lover of the outdoors and of outdoors activities, Mother built a rock garden, planned, planted, and maintained it. She fed the birds and learned their names and habits. She killed snakes when she needed to and helped my cat birth her kittens. She enjoyed working with her hands outdoors in all kinds of weather, including wintry cold and snow. 

Soon after she died, at my father's request, I cleaned out her clothes and sewing closets, from which I kept only a few items, all of which I still have fifty years later: her handmade sewing bag; a fruitcake tin filled with buttons and clasps and frogs; needle-pointed chair seat covers; and her red wool lumberman's jacket.

Her "style transcends age."