Bringing Back Grandma’s Apron
My little girls giggled when I put on my first apron; something so foreign to them. My teenagers rolled their eyes, something of a surprise. I still can hear it in their sighs: “Mom is so old-fashioned!” It's been a couple decades since I first rekindled my romance with aprons. I now have shared with all five of my daughters the wonders of my grandma’s apron, and how pretty I once thought it to be. But an even more practical reason for me bringing aprons back into the home was to spare our clothing. Let’s face it, my daughters and I can be very messy cooks. Remembering the many shirts I have ruined with splattered grease, or wiping hands on clothing, the apron is not such a silly thing after all.
My grandma was my role model. I looked up to her as an example of the woman I wanted to be most like. Her love for the Lord intrigued me. Her love for cooking inspired me. She was so faithful in the kitchen, and to her family. Showing her love and dedication by preparing three homemade meals a day; she wore her apron to snap and can the beans that grandpa brought in from the garden. When she wasn’t sitting down at her sewing machine, or with her quilting needle, she was in the kitchen. She was my inspiration of a Proverbs 31 wife.
In the kitchen, with my daughters, I often share my memories of grandma; that includes the memories of her aprons. Now I’m the one who giggles, as I pull them out of the drawer; because I require them to put on an apron, in order to work in my kitchen. We make all kinds of things in the kitchen, but one of the most fun (and messy, requiring an apron) is homemade pies. I remember she was the grandma who placed homemade pies on the windowsill to cool. However, my children also remember their own grandma (my mother), from another generation, who worked outside the home to put bread on the table, placed her pies by the window to THAW, used a can-opener for her beans, and pushed the buttons on the microwave for a speedy meal. So the sight of an apron is still quite comical to them. That did not hinder the reincarnation of the apron in our home.
I have managed to take the great lessons of my mother, and her style of cooking and caring, and meshed it with the memories of my grandmother and her “old fashioned” ways. My daughters still call me old-fashioned. Yes, I own a microwave, and I’m one-up on my mother with an electric can-opener instead of the crank version. I gave up canning my own beans the year my garden was overtaken by pesky moles. However, I do still make my own strawberry jam, and yes, I have several wonderful aprons to wear around the kitchen.
With all that said I hope that I can inspire other “modern” women to entertain the idea of sporting an apron, while working around the house … and consider introducing the apron to your children.
Now, decades after my first love for aprons, even my own little grandchildren can realize that aprons truly do save your clothing from many-a-messy stains. Plus, they are just plain FUN to wear.
This (below) is a fun poem I found while searching the web for my lost love (of aprons :) ~
Grandma’s Apron
The strings were tied, it was freshly washed, and maybe even pressed.
For Grandma, it was everyday to choose one when she dressed.
The simple apron that it was, you would never think about;
the things she used it for, that made it look worn out.
She may have used it to hold some wildflowers that she'd found.
Or to hide a crying child's face when a stranger came around.
Imagine all the little tears that were wiped with just that cloth.
Or it became a potholder to serve some chicken broth.
She probably carried kindling to stoke the kitchen fire.
To hold a load of laundry, or to wipe the clothesline wire.
When canning all her vegetables, it was used to wipe her brow.
You never know, she might have used it to shoo flies from the cow.
She might have carried eggs in from the chicken coop outside.
Whatever chore she used it for, she did them all with pride.
When Grandma went to heaven, God said she now could rest.
I'm sure the apron that she chose, was her Sunday best.
-by Tina Trivett-
Find Joy in the little things… and go buy yourself an apron.
