Musings on family history, regional history, book reviews, and miscellaneous observations and comments by a genealogist and librarian living near the Great Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Did Great Great Grandma Own a Spinning Wheel?
The answer according to the Tennessee Civil War Veterans' Questionnaire filled in by my Great Grand Uncle Charles Newton Harris is yes. Genealogue has a post that reveals why your ancestor probably only had one shirt.
In colonial days a table cloth was worth more than a table... heck it was worth more than every piece of furniture in the house collectively. Did you ever notice how clothing and linen are specifically mentioned in the older wills as bequests to specific family members?
Yes - I've noticed those wills. In fact, my own grandmother even had specific ones of us that were to get certain doilies or pieces of linen. I always thought that was sort of odd because as a child, I knew you could just go and pick them up at the dime store (pre-Wal-Mart days). As I grew older, I realized the real reasons for specific mentions of these items. She didn't live in the colonial era, but for families who grew up in poverty in the rural south in the early part of the twentieth century (and then experienced the great depression), every penny they had was precious. These were precious because they weren't made of "feed sacks" which was usually what was used for clothing and linens. They made these with needlework supplies they purchased. They became heirloom pieces.
2 comments:
Lori,
In colonial days a table cloth was worth more than a table... heck it was worth more than every piece of furniture in the house collectively. Did you ever notice how clothing and linen are specifically mentioned in the older wills as bequests to specific family members?
Janice
Yes - I've noticed those wills. In fact, my own grandmother even had specific ones of us that were to get certain doilies or pieces of linen. I always thought that was sort of odd because as a child, I knew you could just go and pick them up at the dime store (pre-Wal-Mart days). As I grew older, I realized the real reasons for specific mentions of these items. She didn't live in the colonial era, but for families who grew up in poverty in the rural south in the early part of the twentieth century (and then experienced the great depression), every penny they had was precious. These were precious because they weren't made of "feed sacks" which was usually what was used for clothing and linens. They made these with needlework supplies they purchased. They became heirloom pieces.
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