A History of Aprons

Quoted in full from a magazine I picked up recently. I think this is really gorgeous..

I don't think our kids know what an apron is. The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath, because she only had a few. It was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven. It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears!

From a chicken coop, an apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven. When friends came, aprons were ideal places for shy kids. 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 autumn, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees. When unexpected guests drove in, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a few seconds. When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out on to the porch, waved her apron and the men knew it was time to come home for dinner. It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that "old time apron" which served so many purposes.

PS Remember Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her grand-daughters set theirs on the window sills to thaw from the freezer!