Back when there was no electric power and water came from a well, my aunt Elizabeth Baker and her husband, Frank, had a farm on Center Road in Gill.
Aunt Elizabeth was a very dedicated farmer’s wife who took on all the chores of farming while her husband worked in a local factory. I remember as a child watching her get water from a pump attached to the kitchen sink.
My first cousin Helen Woodard Gould recently discovered a story about my aunt’s apron, that I suspect was written by one of my aunt’s grandchildren.
At its beginning, the author notes how many children nowadays probably don’t know what an apron is, but how it was a fixture in Aunt Elizabeth’s household.
“The principal use of Grandma’s apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few,” the story reads. “It was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material. Along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.
It was most wonderful for drying children’s tears and, on occasion, was even used for cleaning out dirty ears. From the chicken’s coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warmer oven.
When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids, and when the weather was cold, Grandma wrapped it around her arms. Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove. Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.
From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls. In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.
When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.
When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron and the men knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.
It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that ‘old time apron’ that served so many purposes.”
Near the end of the story, the author recounts how Aunt Elizabeth used to set her hot, baked apple pies on the windowsill to cool. Now, her granddaughters set theirs on the windowsill to thaw.
“They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron,” the story concludes. “I don’t think I ever caught anything from an apron … except for maybe a hug!”