Word: aprons
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There's nothing like an apron to evoke domesticity. Like a treasured baby blanket, it is rich with sentiment and associations. Store-bought or homemade, flower print or flour sack, an apron does double duty as protection and decoration. An old apron's faded pattern seems a memory of itself. Its soft, well-washed fabric feels as soothing as soup. But an apron also represents a woman kept in her place. The pert hostess aprons of the 1950s, with their printed poodles and cheery appliques, might seem these days to have tried too hard to put a good face...
Among the tales on exhibit is one by Ray Moore, a lanky, leathery westerner, who shares tender memories of his grandmother cradling freshly gathered eggs in her apron. Patricia Albillar Diaz recounts Christmastime suppers of rice and beans served by welcoming, aproned neighbors. Writer Emily Prager recalls her grandmother's apron drawer and laments the demise of a "fabulous device that kept your clothes clean when there was no running water." These days, she notes, "the only aprons you see are barbecue aprons...
There are farmwives and churchwomen of grit and industry and waitresses who wore their aprons proudly as professionals. Men recall mothers with plenty of spunk who were up at dawn to pack lunches for school or hang wash with clothespins pulled from an apron's bottomless pocket. Grandmas figure prominently. The tales of their ease and intimacy while they sewed together or rolled out dough remind the viewer that sometimes a grandmother with a bosom might be preferable to one with biceps...
...well. Voices tell of unbearable marriages and emotionally distant relatives. There is the occasional stab of tragedy: a small child dies from eating poisonous berries. There are recipes. And there are surprises: a cowboy recalls his first pair of chaps, which were fashioned from his grandfather's horseshoeing apron...
...Apron Chronicles A new exhibit reveals how this humdrum item evokes life stories...