Personal archaeology

Maria mentioned the other day that she was searching for some dress patterns and had exhausted all of the place in the house where unpacked stuff was put.

So I did a little poking around amongst the boxes still stored in the garage. I didn't find the patterns she wanted, but I did find some rather old stuff that had belonged to my mother, including this pre-World War II (printed in 1941) McCall's apron pattern.

It appears that my mother used the pattern to make at least one apron, but all of the components are still in the envelope.

My mother would have been 26 when she plunked down 25 cents at a store in Delphi or Lafayette, Ind., for this pattern. She'd been married for four years and I, her first and only child, was still another four years in the future. I bet she looked pretty spiffy in her necktie-pattern apron, bustling around the kitchen in her new home at 609 E. Franklin Street, Delphi, and listening to big band music on her blonde bakelite Philco table radio.