Mothers, Feed Sack Dresses and Sparklers

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal

“My mother taught me about the power of inspiration and courage, and
she did it with a strength and a passion that I wish could be bottled.” ~Cathy Fiorina

I know you were expecting more birthday stories to go along with my birthday giveaway. (Remember you can check out details here.) So the mother quote may have surprised you. But without our mothers, we couldn’t have a birthday. Mothers and birthdays have an undeniable connection. Plus, our mothers may be the first to give us wonderful birthday celebrations.

One of the fun parts of these contests I have is hearing from you, my reading friends. Some of you have shared stories with me over and over in different contests, and I’m so grateful for that. The stories make me a winner every time I have one of these giveaways and I do hope you enjoy sharing your stories too. 

Sometimes a friend will share something more the way Ola did here when she sent me the above picture of her on her 7th birthday in a dress made by her mother. It’s so pretty and you can see how Ola loved it. When I asked Ola if I could use her picture, she wrote me a little more about her mother. So many of you have shared about your mothers after I shared about mine in my newsletter. A good mother is a blessing and a gift and Ola had one of those good mothers. Here’s what she told me about her.

“No, I don’t mind if you
share. That’s one of my favorite pics of me. I wish I had one of the dresses my
mama made me now. I would really love to have one made of feedsacks that she
made. She was an amazing woman to raise 7 kids mostly by herself. She raised a big garden and canned it to feed
us. She sewed, knitted, crocheted, quilted and made all sorts of dolls to sell.
She went back to school and graduated from high school when she was 67 years
old. She’s been gone 10 years now and I still miss her but see her all around
me.”
Thanks for sharing about your mother, Ola. She does sound like an amazing woman and I’m sure she raised some amazing children. You also brought back memories of those feed sacks or flour sacks. I don’t remember if I had dresses made from them, but I do remember others talking about those cotton sacks. The feed sacks I remember were gunny sacks and the flour companies switched over to paper bags. But here’s a pattern I found on this blog, The Country Farmhome, all about those feed sack dresses and some interesting photos and history. Any of you remember these?
Sometimes our mothers have parties for us and sometimes we have parties for them. Here’s Stefanie’s story about how she tried to make her mother’s birthday special, but sometimes great ideas need to be fine tuned a bit. Even so, mothers know how to take it in stride with a smile. 

“My birthday story is about my Mom. She was
born on July 10 and loved the 4th of July. Well, one year I decided to put
sparklers on her cake. Let’s just say that there were quite a few burning in
place of candles. We could not eat the cake because the metal sparklers had
left a gritty, black soot on the frosting and the cake itself tasted like the
sparklers smelled!!! But Mom, being who she was, loved it anyway!!! She has been
gone 16 years and I miss her like it was today. Love you, Mom.”

 

Thanks for sharing with us, Stefanie and warning us off those sparklers in place of candles. 
Hope if you haven’t thrown your name into my drawing hat for the giveaway for gift cards and books, that you will. You can find out more about the prizes and how to enter on this post. As always, thanks for reading.