My Grandmother’s Dress

     As I cautiously touched the tip of the iron to the fragile dress, I wished it could tell stories about my grandmother and the special occasions she wore it. I turned the dial to silk and held my breath as I slowly smoothed the wrinkles from the ninety-seven year old fabric.  This was the first time an electric iron had touched this hand sewn piece of my family's history.  No doubt the fabric and lace were bought after the tobacco crop was sold in the late fall.  The tiny stitches were made by a young person whose sight was sharp.  Perhaps by my grandmother herself,

                                IF THE DRESS COULD TALK

     The dogwoods bloomed early that spring of 1914 in the foot hills of the Blue Ridge.  She had always loved the Spring with its bursts of new life, and palettes of color.  She counted the days until the grass of early May was thick and soft as velvet.  Off came her shoes, her feet taking great pleasure in their freedom.  But something was not right this year...no walks to find snowdrops or early daffodils who resided near the warmth of the chimney, no singing of little ditties.  Not even her little son born the day after Christmas brought the sparkle back to her eyes.  Her family was concerned.

     Ethel Davis Patterson was born in 1897, the oldes of three girls and one brother.  Called, Sister, by her family, she was a happy, fun loving child.  Life was hard on a Virginia tobacco farm but h er parents acritficed to see that their children were well fed and dressed appropriately.

     Sometime in early 1915, a widower with several young children started paying attention to the pretty, oldest Patterson girl.  I don't know the full story since I had not been formed.  But the story told around the community was that he courted her as if he were a young man.  In the early part of that year they eloped.  It's here that the story starts to become clouded with gossip and assumptions.  For whatever reason the young bride did not move into her husband's house.  In a little more than nine months she gave birth to a healthy baby boy.  It was a difficult birth and her health seamed to worsen as the days and months passed.

     The little baby  began to grow and thrive in the care of his grandmother and two aunts.  Sister couldn't help but smile when she looked into his dark eyes.  Everyone tried to help her take her mind off her oppressing illness.  She needed a new dress, one that fit.  She ate very little and had lost weight.  Fabric and lace were bought at the local mercantile.  That's when I came into existence.  Her Mother cut a pattern from and old dress, carefully measuring each part.  The sisters, helped with sewing, making the tiniest stitches imaginable.  I will never forget the day the dress was finished.  All the women gathered in the bedroom, helping Sister to get dressed.  I fit like a glove.  Her waist was barely nineteen inches.  She looked beautiful with her dark hair and high cheek bones, her Indian heritage quite evident.  Someone remarked, "She should have her portrait done."  Although that was an expensive venture, her parents found the money to have it made.  I have a feeling they knew she would not be around much longer.
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     Much to my sorrow Ethel passed away in childbirth a few months later.  She and the little boy were buried in the same coffin.  He family never got over her untimely death.  I was gently folded and put away in a trunk until many years later, Ethel's granddaughter retrieved me to accompany her to Memoir Class.  I am glad. Ethel would be, too.

HANDMADE DRESS

ETHEL PATTERSON BAYS--1915

MEMORIES OF MOVING

Recently we decided to buy a house.  That does sound exciting until you hear that we're a retired couple.  Our combined age is 156 years!  As I began to sort and pack  memories  flooded my mind.........some humorous, and others sad.  The funniest one took place in November of 2009. I have "tweaked " it just a little. 

DON’T WAIT UNTIL YOU’RE OLD TO MOVE INTO A RETIREMENT COMMUNITY

      Growing old is not for the. faint of heart. That didn’t mean a lot  to me until about 31/2 months ago when George, just out of the blue said, “Let’s move to Brightwater!” (Well, it wasn’t exactly out of the blue since I had been leaving little hints here and there for months...literature I left lying around after attending Brightwater get-to-gathers, making a big to do over the progress of the construction through e-mails I received weekly. “Oh, look, George, they’re making it hurricane proof. Wow! Look, that’s the club house going up--it’ll be connected to the villas and you won’t even have to go outside to go to the dining room or the beauty shop or the pool, etc. Answer, “um hum, that’s nice.” After several weeks of this he finally gave me a one sentence response, “Sweetie, all that is nice but we can’t afford it.”

He was probably right--this was about the time the economy started going sour an cutting  expenses became paramount. In one of those moves I came up with the idea of cutting our lawn care cost in half--brainstorm--we would get a power mower and George could cut the grass every other week. Great, we just saved a hundred dollars a month but George wasn’t smiling. “What’s wrong, sweetie? Would that be too hard for you?” Then comes the reason for no smiles, “I grew up in Brooklyn and I had a postage stamp yard and I only used an old fashioned push mower. I’m almost 81 years old and you expect me to buy a power mower at this stage in my life?”
“It would be good exercise.”

“ I don’t need more exercise --I go to Wal-Mart at least twice and sometimes three times a day and I walk fast.”

“ Uh, well wouldn’t it give you a feeling of self-accomplishment?”

“I can find cooler and better ways to do that!”

“Oh, so you expect me to give up things to save money and you won’t“. A long silence.

“Okay, get in the car, we’re going to Home Depot and get a mower but I’m not promising I’m going to use it.”

“Well, I’ve cut many acres of grass and I can still do it.” Silence.

“Now, Darlene what kind of a husband would people think I am to let you cut the grass and I’m in the house watching television?”

“ Well, I don’t know but there are a lot of people who come and go over at our church across the street!”

I think George cut the grass about three times before he decided we should move to Brightwater.



THE MOVE

After talking to the powers to be at Brightwater and getting all the papers filled out we were ready to proceed to move. We were given 4 years to sell our house so that was no pressure. Then we chose a realtor and I believe a great one. This was on Friday and the house went on the market the following Monday.

All right, now it was time to get ourselves organized. It would be fun to get rid of some things, help out the kids and grand kids and the church with the rummage sale at the same time. After all this would be my 28^th move and you couldn’t tell me anything I hadn’t encountered at least once. And besides I was a librarian with a masters degree in organization. I made lists and my lists had sub lists and I color coded. I chose two weekends for family to come and take the “stuff” away. We eliminated Christmas shopping except for the very young children by giving away treasures--books, Christmas ornaments, model cars, stamp collections, all sorts of memorabilia Some family members helped clear two attics and two garages and an extra kitchen. For that we will be eternally grateful. But there was still too much left to move. Oh, we had a two day successful garage sale on a rainy, cold week-end.
We made many trips back and forth to
Brightwater before we closed the deal.  First red flag. Something in the back of my mind kept reminding me that short distance moves are like drawing out a root canal for days. There was always something left at the old place to get. And you know we still have stuff in two storage buildings in North Myrtle beach.

 All of you know moving is just not a fun thing to do, even less fun as my age. I look back at that move and realize there was a third entity there--a monster, if you will. I named him the Downsizing Monster--he was big and ugly and mean.  For some reason he wouldn’t let me stuff him into a 1400 square foot villa. He kept whispering in my ear such things as, “you can’t get rid of Mama’s stained Sunday tablecloth or what would Dad think if he knew you threw his collection of pipes away(even if Mama ruined them when she gave them a good washing). And what about that collection of old cameras and hundreds of cook books? We could go on and on but you get the picture. We are still in the War of Downsizing but we can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. Oops! Maybe I shouldn’t have used that metaphor.

Since the Monster is actually residing with us we have discovered another bad habit of his. He steals, and the strangest things: like shampoo, hairdryers, eye shadow, jewelry, salt and pepper shakers. Do any of you remember when you had no choice and washed your hair with hand soap? Or brushed your teeth with a dry toothbrush because you couldn’t find the tooth paste or vice verso? Or digging around in your purse hoping to find something to enhance your looks and you just came up with one old eyeliner pencil? Hey, beats nothing. With just a light touch it makes good eye shadow and a dab of lipstick carefully smoothed on the cheeks is a good substitute for blush. This is one time I was thankful for curly hair--no hairdryer and just towel drying--I resembled Little Orphan Annie. But the craziest thing to lose is still lost. My prosthesis! (I had breast cancer). I cannot not imagine where it could have gone. Some possibilities are:

1. IT GOT IN A RUMMAGE SALE BOX BY ACCIDENT. I HOPE IF SOMEONE STARTS TO PRICE IT THEY WILL REALIZE  IT IS PRICELESS TO ME.

2. The cat has dragged it under the couch…. thinking it was a fat, hairless rat.
3. It got put in the wash on the hot cycle and disintegrated.
4. The housekeepers(probably not from SC) thought it was a weird Low County fungus and threw it in the garbage.
. 5. It fell into the trash can and now is disintegrating in a landfill out in Wampee

So if the next time you see me and I look normal you know “It” has been found

One last thing-- Granted moving is not for the faint at heart but I have faith it will be finished someday and the Downsizing Monster will move on to another naive couple who believe their golden years have arrived and they need to move into a Retirement Community!
THE END
Darlene Eichler
Villa 1111