VIDEO HERE (8:51 minutes)
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It wasn't just Appalachian women, it was poor folks everywhere. I can remember my Okie great-grandmother wearing flour sack blouses, and they didn't look bad at all.
Folks that lived through the Depression learned to make do with what they had.
Use it up; wear it out; make it do. Old New Englander saying.
ReplyDeleteMy folks were both of the depression generation I heard it as “Use it up; wear it out, make it do, or do without “. It somehow rubbed off on me 8>)…
Deleteyes same here rickvid and anonymous same here. We made it this far due to our parents
DeleteGrandma made my shirts from Ginghamgirl flour sacks 43 - 46. Yeah I am that old, 84 in a couple months.
ReplyDeleteMy Mom ribboned at the county fair as a teenager with a "Flour sack" dress.
ReplyDeleteMe and my wife were both farm kids growing up. She really had dresses made from flour sacks when she very was young...and I grew up using an outhouse until I was about 11 years old. I remember the day the inside bathroom was finished and dad let me and my brothers burn the old shitter down.
ReplyDeleteStill have ours. Has come in handy every so often.
DeleteI have a pillowcase made from a flour sack, given to me by my mother, made by my great-grandmother.
ReplyDelete--Tennessee Budd
I have heard that some of the flour mills ordered sacks with patterns because of the practice of making clothing from them.
ReplyDeleteYes, they did, with the logo in wash-out ink.
DeleteMight make a comeback. Biden dresses.
ReplyDeleteLooks better than the stuff Jill wears.
DeleteSteve S6
One of the flour companies when they found out people were making dresses from their sacks switched to a water washable ink for their logos and markings so that would washout and allow more of the sack to be used. Then others followed the idea, later some used flowered fabric for the sacks. Thats back when companies cared about clients.
ReplyDeleteExile1981
That is true. I remember my granny using flour sacks for clothing and underwear. Sewed them on a foot pedal powered Singer machine.
DeleteYeah, white supremacy.
ReplyDeleteThis shit's gonna make a comeback, like it or not.
ReplyDeleteYes I also grew up poor and wore hand me downs from older Brothers. But needed new shirts, ties, slacks and dress shoes for Catholic school. Sacrifice one for the other, education. Just the wat it was and parents later was told they went to bed hungry to feed the 3 boys and daughter.
ReplyDeleteJust a way to survive.
The term “hand-me-down” originally meant store bought clothes. At the general store, you’d ask Mr. Jones to hand you down a folded shirt from the top row. It surprised me when I learned this, because I grew up knowing the phrase as things you got from an older sibling.
DeleteIt’s cool how language and phrases change over time.
I had flower sack skivies as a kid. A button clasp and a cotton draw string,
ReplyDeleteYup, I remember the outhouse well. We had running water in the kitchen but there was a hand pump outside. It was a modern one, self priming. Before that ya always left a can of water by the pump to prime them with each use. Top of the pump had a bowl ya poured the water in to prime. My brother, the oldest, was nine years older then me and his hand me downs were long gone. I had two older sisters. My mother used to put my sisters old buckle shoes on me. I'd go to the barn and had a hell of a time undoing those buckles. I'd get the shoes off and stick em in the gutters. My father finally found enough of them cleaning gutters to figure out what I was doing. No way I was wearing girls shoes. So, I went barefoot.
ReplyDeleteI bought a nice flour sack shirt in Angeles City in the PI back in the 80s.
ReplyDeleteVery comfortable and stylish, too
My wifes family had a chicken hatchery and feed store, late 1930's until early 1960's, they kept a table of empty patterned feed sacks that customers could buy or exchange for to get enough matching fabric to make clothes.
ReplyDeleteGrew up in DeKalb County, Alabama, between Lookout and Sand mountain, Grandma made flour sack dresses, aprons and sun bonnets that she wore.
ReplyDeleteMy mother made my shirts from flour sacks. I watched, asked questions and learned how to sew. This came in handy 50 years later when I sewed the upholstery for the seat in my 1935 Ford truck
ReplyDeleteNope… in Harlan County, clothes bought at the company store were referred to as “brought on”….I.e. they were brought to town from outside the area…
ReplyDeleteAnd the flour companies deliberately printed their flour sacks with pretty patterns on them for just that reason.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmothers on both sides and my mother wore floursack dresses and blouses in the 20s an 30s. Yes, we were southern and poor.
ReplyDelete