My mother always wore a bib apron to protect the cotton dresses she sewed for herself on an old machine that made a thumping sound when she moved the treadle with her foot. Except for the year of 1937 when I was twelve and my sister was fourteen and my father had lost his job and couldn't find another, she never worked outside the home. She didn't like to neighbor -- that is, sit in other people's kitchens and gossip -- but seemed somehow to know what was going on in the scattering of houses visible from our yard. With my sister and I her only audience in those pre-television days of homemade...
My mother always wore a bib apron to protect the cotton dresses she sewed for herself on an old machine that made a thumping sound when she moved the ...