January 1, 1995
At the warning call, “the bus is coming!” I closed the book I had been reading, thrust my arms into the sleeves of my long winter coat, grabbed school books off the breakfast table, and buttoned as I ran to the yellow bus. On board, I sank into a seat and read my book.
At school as I slid off my coat I looked down and discovered that I had forgotten one thing in my morning rush. I was still wearing my apron. Hoping no one had seen me, I yanked at the bow, wadded the apron into a ball and thrust it deep into the locker. At 15 years old, it didn’t matter that every girl in every home-ec class learned how to sew by making an apron: one did not wear aprons to school.
Three decades later, my daughter is nearly the age I was that morning. She has never owned an apron, not even when she had a toy stove and dishes.
I was reminded of the once prevalent apron as I recently watched the movie “Foxfire” starring Jessica Tandy as an old woman living up in the hills. Whether dressed up or working in the yard or kitchen, Tandy wears the kind of apron that looks like a jumper in the front and has very substantial straps with buttons in the back. Worn to protect the dress underneath from being spotted as she worked around the house and yard, a woman could whip off her apron and welcome drop-in company in a clean dress.
I know, because both my grandmothers wore aprons. Grandma Hibbard had aprons in a multitude of fashions and colors. Plain coveralls, like Jessica’s; the simple tie-in-the-back half-skirt in many patterns, and the bib-type that hung, from the shoulders to the hips; and even a couple with a few ruffles. When Grandma Hibbard was through cooking, she hung her apron on the nail reserved for that purpose.
I guess Grandma Waight had an apron nail of her own, but it was hard to tell when she took off her apron. She made aprons to match her dresses. Sometime around 1930, Grandma Waight found a simple dress pattern that she liked and used it forever after and usually in various shades and patterns of navy. She planned on having an extra piece of cloth left from the dressmaking to make a simple half-skirt apron with ties. Whatever dress she put on in the morning, she had a matching apron that she wore over its skirt. It was hard to tell that she actually was wearing an apron.
Of both grandmothers’ three dozen or so female descendants, none wears aprons, me included. Something changed. In the movie, Jessica Tandy sells the old farm place, with its woodpile, garden, and yard pump. She takes off her apron, packs up and moves to the city to be with her grandchildren. That may be what happened to the aprons. With microwaves, instant meals and prepared vegetables from the grocery, the need disappeared.
The passing of an era.
At least my daughter will never know the embarrassment of arriving at school wearing her apron.