The SAD IRON

In my living room is the turn of the 20th century sewing table holding the 1929 Singer Bentwood cased sewing machine of my Great Grandmother Catherine Sandman Young. My Great Grandmother born 1864 and died 1954, was a seamstress from her teen years (according to the Philadelphia federal census) I also have her 'Sad Iron' which weighs about 6 pounds and is solid cast iron. The name "sad" comes from the old English/German word for solid and this iron was in use for a couple of hundred years, at least until the 1880's when the first electric iron was invented. Since most households had a constant running fire in a fireplace or a coal stove, the iron was heated on a surface near it and then placed on a trivet.

The sewing machine that I have from Great-Grandmother Catherine is a 1929 Singer made in New Jersey and there is a longer blog about it further down the list. These two artifacts of female life are the oldest heirlooms from my female ancestors that I own. The oldest heirloom from a male ancestor is a deck chair from the early 1900's that belonged to my paternal Grandfather who was a Merchant Seaman. I don't know what significance this chair has or why he kept it but I was always fond of it from childhood because it has those desk arms for a book or a drawing pad. I saved this chair when my parents moved to West Virginia and my father was clearing out the garage attic where it had been relegated for some reason.

A kind friend fabricated a missing piece and helped me put it togeether as it had been disassembled.

These items have great emotional value to me, a connection with my forebears, and in particular the sewing machine has meaning because it is how my Greath Grandmother and my Grandmother supported themselves during and after widowhood.

I began to ask friends what their oldest heirloom from a female relative was and one told me hers was an afghan knitted by her Norwegian Grandmother who had raised 10 children mostly on her own. She had been a cleaner and she had done farm work..

I am very taken with the kaleidescope of thoughts connected to making clothes from the 19th century, the thought of the piles of fabrics, the wooden spools of gem like threads, the buttons, beads, lace trims, velvet trims. What a rich and artist resource.

Once, I did a lot of sewing myself. In my late teens and early twenties, I made all my own clothes from Simplicity patterns, and when my daughter was born, I made most of her clothes until she went to grade school. The putting together the pieces from the patterns, all the parts of the process of making an item of clothing from choosing the material on were pleasurable to me. Sewing on a machine is kind of magical and I still do some Art work usig my sewing machine passed down from my mother, the best model every made according to my repair man, Chuck McGrath.

AS it happens I have several heirloom items, one from my other Grandmother, the Irish line in Philadelphia - Lavinia McQuiston (married name Lyons) which is a chocolate pot made in occupied Japan. I have that pot because I admired it in her China Cabinet and she gave it to me. >p/> Once I made a scrapbook about the family heirlooms that I have so that when I die, my relatives will hold onto them and not jsut let them go to Goodwill or someplace anonymous like that. These came down, after all, hand to hand, relative to relative.

What is your oldest artifact/heirloom from a female anestor? wrightj45@yahoo.com