I loved all your memories of flour sack towels, of how they were used in the past and now today. So fun!
My winner of this set of towels is:
Donna Morris Morris
Watch for my email, and I’ll have these sent directly to you from Amazon!
(Winner chosen by Random.org)
Among the gifts I received for Christmas this year were flour sack towels. Three of them, to be exact. Two were sweetly embroidered for my husband and me by our young granddaughters, and the third was screen-printed with a Christmas-themed gingerbread man with a stack of books from my sister.
With this towel came a slip of paper noting the history and benefits of flour sack towels. Of course, I suspect we all have a flour sack towel or two in our kitchen drawers right now, and we all probably have a pretty good idea how the towels came to be, but I especially found interesting the foresightedness of feed companies that led to their practical use and popularity.
I didn’t realize just how widespread that popularity was!
In 1850 or so, flour was shipped and sold in big wooden barrels to the general stores. Cumbersome and not particularly sanitary, right? About this time, cotton was more easily harvested and became plentiful. Grain mills took to shipping the flour in thick-weaved cotton bags strong enough to hold fifty pounds and later, one hundred pounds. Soon, sugar, animal feed, fertilizer, seeds, etc., followed in those bags, and it wasn’t long until frugal housewives, loathe to throw anything useful away, found new ways to use them.
Towels, aprons, diapers, bedding, and all sorts of clothing were just the beginning. But alas, who wanted to wear a shirt or a dress with the flour company’s logo branded across the front? Housewives determinedly removed the labels with rounds of soaking and washing with bleach and lye soap. After the chain stitching was pulled out of the side of the bag, the cotton could be cleaned, starched, and pressed.
(These leggings were made by a Lakota woman sometime in the 1920s using leather and dyed porcupine quills on the lower half visible below a dress. On the upper part which would be hidden by the dress, she used flour sacks from Rex Flour.)
Eventually, seeing the growing popularity of up-cycling the feed bags and seeing a potential rise in sales, manufacturers switched to paper labels. Housewives found removing the glue-backed labels with kerosene much easier but still a chore. The feed companies and flour mills took continued compassion (with an eye toward higher profits, of course) on housewives and began to print their logos using water-soluble vegetable inks.
Popularity for the bags soared in the 1920s when the cotton mills hit upon the idea of producing fabrics in colorful flower prints, designs for pillowcases and curtains, embroidery patterns, and even patterns for children’s clothing, teddy bears, dolls, and so on.
How fun, right?
(Isn’t this a pretty pillowcase? Sacks were sewn with string and a large needle, and when the sacks were taken apart, small holes were left behind. Can you see the stitching on the edge of this pillowcase?)
Women had to compete for the bags, often bringing their able-bodied sons or husbands with them to the store to maneuver through a pile of heavy sacks to get to the bottom where the choice prints could be found. Rural wives, of course, had an advantage of plenty of bags on hand to feed their livestock. Others had to collect, save, and trade to have enough yardage for their projects. Others bought larger bags called “empties” from bakers for only pennies a piece.
One 100-pound bag of feed netted a yard of 44 inch fabric. You can see how many bags would be needed for a large project or multiple clothing items.
Even President Calvin Coolidge, known for his frugality, benefited from the women’s enthusiastic creativity by receiving a gift of handmade flour-sack pajamas. It took five flour sacks to make the pajamas and were a show of support for his economic program.
During World War II, due to a shortage of cotton fabric, the government strongly encouraged use of the bags. Women sold their surplus bags for extra cash. After the war ended, rural women developed a sense of fashion from their frugality, and national sewing contests were held so they could show off their skills, netting prizes like expensive sewing machines, automobiles, or even a trip to Hollywood!
It’s easy to see how the cotton bags boosted the cotton industry. Once the sacks were cleaned and readied for use, there were as comparable in quality and design as any new percale sold in stores, thanks to top textile designers from New York City and Europe who jumped on board to produce designs with colorfast dyes. One of the earliest collections was by the Percy Kent Bag Company, still in business today in Missouri and have even done bag work for Disney films.
(Staley Milling Company of St. Louis and Kansas City was one of Percy Kent’s biggest customers. Here are packaged animal feeds in Percy Kent dress-print sacking.)
I don’t know that flour sack towels are used much to sew clothing these days, but they are the absolute best for drying dishes and being used in other ways in the kitchen. They’re fun to use in crafts, too, like stamping, painting with paint pens, screen and digital printing, all things those 19th century grain mills and the cotton industry never dreamed of!
To win a set of these pretty flour sack towels, tell me how and if you use flour sack towels for anything besides drying dishes!
Have you gotten your copy of JOY TO THE COWBOY yet? Book #2 of the Christmas Stocking Sweethearts series by the fillies!
She was sunshine. He was clouds. Until a sprig of mistletoe changed everything.
Griff Marcello must live with the shame of the crime he once committed for his mobster father. As he grows into a man, he’s found security as a cowboy living in Glory Hill, Nebraska, but the memory of his sin never leaves him.
Joyanna Hollinger is devoted to the community of Glory Hill, and with Christmas approaching, her plans for a special Christmas Eve service consumes her. All her efforts are falling into place–until she loses a key part of the celebration.
When Griff receives an unexpected gift from his former piano teacher, he never thinks her kindness will fill him with the spirit of Christmas, even when Joyanna needs him most.
Could the simplicity of a hand-stitched stocking and the Christmas carol tucked within chase away the clouds in his heart and warm him from the sunshine of Joyanna’s love?
#kindleunlimited
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Book #2!
JOY TO THE COWBOY is the only story in our series with a guy on the cover, and I love the looks of him. He’s just how I envisioned my cowboy (even though he is a little grumpy at first!) Trust me, you’ll love him in the end as much as I do!
She was sunshine. He was clouds. Until a sprig of mistletoe changed everything.
Griff Marcello must live with the shame of the crime he once committed for his mobster father. As he grows into a man, he’s found security as a cowboy living in Glory Hill, Nebraska, but the memory of his sin never leaves him.
Joyanna Hollinger is devoted to the community of Glory Hill, and with Christmas approaching, her plans for a special Christmas Eve service consumes her. All her efforts are falling into place–until she loses a key part of the celebration.
When Griff receives an unexpected gift from his former piano teacher, he never thinks her kindness will fill him with the spirit of Christmas, even when Joyanna needs him most.
Could the simplicity of a hand-stitched stocking and the Christmas carol tucked within chase away the clouds in his heart and warm him from the sunshine of Joyanna’s love?
Also Available in Audiobook!
Yes, we know. It’s that time of year when we sometimes feel less kind than we should.
Re-write the sentence in red to something less naughty and more nice. For example:
NAUGHTY: “Grandma’s eggnog is too thick and chunky.”
NICE: “Isn’t it wonderful Grandma is still with us to make her eggnog?”
THE ELECTRIC BILL HAS GONE UP.
You might win this musical piano ornament, new this year from Hallmark!
(I love how it looks just like the one on my cover. Even better, it plays “Joy to the World,” the carol I’d already chosen for JOY TO THE COWBOY!)
All entries will be eligible for our oh-so-beautiful Grand Prize, too!
Winners announced Sunday, December 15!
(USA Winners only, please.)
I’ve always had a fascination with the Mafia. Be it my Italian heritage or the fact that I grew up in the 50s and 60s when the mob was prevalent in the news, their way of ‘doing business’ was shockingly at odds with their strong sense of family and faith. Who doesn’t remember the infamous Baptism
scene in “The Godfather” while Michael Corleone participates in the revered Catholic ceremony for his nephew, praising God and renouncing Satan, while at the same time his hitmen carry out orders to murder his enemies?
So as I was plotting my story for our Christmas Stocking Sweethearts series, I wanted my hero, Griff Marcello, to be plagued by his past. I wanted him to be as different from my heroine as I could make him. I wanted clouds and sunshine. And since I always have a villain in my books, I thought of having him commit a crime when he was younger, but it still troubles him when he’s older.
Of course, in the West, thieving, pistol-toting gangs abounded, but I was determined to find something different. Since my book is set 1874, I wondered if the Mafia had infiltrated the United States yet. To my surprise and pleasure, they had, indeed.
The New Orleans Mafia put down their tentacles along the Gulf Coast and busied themselves with criminal activities like racketeering, extortion, gambling, prostitution, narcotics distribution, money laundering, loan sharking, fencing of stolen goods, and murder. The usual stuff, right? And not so different than their more modern-day counterparts.
In the mid-20th century, the Marcello crime family became notorious in New Orleans. Led by Carlos Marcello, who emigrated with his Sicilian parents in 1911 and settled in a decaying plantation outside of New Orleans along with his eight siblings, he eventually assumed the role of boss. The crime family wielded heavy influence until the 1980s when Marcello was sent to prison, and in spite of his downfall, it’s believed remnants of his Mafia remain in New Orleans today.
Remember those eight siblings I mentioned? One of them was Anthony Marcello, who was far more elusive than his brother, Carlos. Thus, he became the perfect character as the father to my hero, Griff. And a shadowy villain, too.
Lest you think JOY TO THE COWBOY is something dark and un-Christmas-like, trust me, it’s not. The New Orleans mobster is only backstory, transplanted from another time, but what a cool villain he could be. Stay tuned!
And now… drum roll, please!…I’m thrilled to share with you my book in the Christmas Stocking Sweethearts series! We’ve only just launched the series, and you’re among the first to see!
She was sunshine. He was clouds. Until a sprig of mistletoe changed everything.
Griff Marcello must live with the shame of the crime he once committed for his mobster father. As he grows into a man, he’s found security as a cowboy living in Glory Hill, Nebraska, but the memory of his sin never leaves him.
Joyanna Hollinger is devoted to the community of Glory Hill, and with Christmas approaching, her plans for a special Christmas Eve service consumes her. All her efforts are falling into place–until she loses a key part of the celebration.
When Griff receives an unexpected gift from his former piano teacher, he never thinks her kindness will fill him with the spirit of Christmas, even when Joyanna needs him most.
Could the simplicity of a hand-stitched stocking and the Christmas carol tucked within chase away the clouds in his heart and warm him from the sunshine of Joyanna’s love?
Tropes:
Holiday Romance
Grumpy & Sunshine
First Love
Small Town
Sweet Historical Western
All books in the Christmas Stocking Sweethearts series will be released during Cowboys & Mistletoe, starting December 1st. But you can preorder each one now.
See all the books on our SERIES PAGE ON AMAZON
Do you prefer a villain in your books? Or do you prefer a story less suspenseful? What’s your favorite kind of villain? Scary or well-intentioned? Do you have a favorite villain from a movie or a book?
We’ve recently returned from a family trip to Durango, Colorado, a place that has been on my bucket list for years, not only for the western vibe but mostly because of the infamous train ride that it’s known for.
Like most everyone else who has visited Durango, we took the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad train through the San Juan National Forest, an authentic ride through the mountains and wilderness much as it would have been back in the late 1800s. After 3 1/2 hours (which didn’t seem nearly that long thanks to our entertaining guide and beautiful scenery), we stopped in Silverton for a 2 1/2 hour visit before we boarded the bus back to our VRBO. (We took the bus back since it was literally 2/3 of the time faster, but we could have returned by train if we’d wanted a reverse view of what we had seen going up. LOL)
If I thought Durango had a western vibe, it had nothing on Silverton.
Quaint and full of history, we had our choice of restaurants to go for lunch, and we ended up going to the Lacey Rose Saloon, a bar and restaurant next to the legendary Grand Imperial Hotel. After a lovely meal, we meandered out of the saloon and stopped short at the bar. Though the hotel was built in 1882, the beautiful back bar was added in 1902. Made of tiger wood maple and graced with large mirrors, its carvings are stunning for the Victorian period.
And here’s the best part.
While in the throes of Silverton’s silver mining hey-day, outlaws and prospectors alike spent time in the saloon to slake their thirst and engage in some spirited gunplay. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Bat Masterson were among them, and if you look closely, you can see that a bullet once pierced that beautiful tiger wood maple above the mirrors. Folks say it was Bat Masterson’s bullet. If true, either he’d fired a warning shot that day–or he wasn’t as good of a shot as he was known for.
Now this is interesting. Once my ex-military brother spied this photograph, though, he made a certain detail clear. That bullet was a casing–not a bullet projectile and therefore not Bat Masterson’s bullet. The saloon’s bartender did say it was a .38 special casing that had been placed there as a landmark in the last twenty or thirty years to help people locate the hole.
Hmm.
Was the hole originally made by Bat Masterson’s bullet, then filled in with a modern-day .38 casing for the tourists’ benefit? We may never know for sure, but all stories start somewhere, right?
That’s what legends are made of.
Do you have someplace that’s on your bucket list to visit?
(I want to go on a cruise to the Bahamas! And then maybe to Ireland . . . )
Have you been to Durango? Silverton? On the Durango-Silverton train?
I would never say I have a green thumb, but boy, my garden was prolific this year. I had more tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, snap peas, jalapeno peppers, and onions than we could eat. And then we picked apples from a nearby orchard. I had drawn the line at growing zucchini again, and my daughters were more than happy to give me some of theirs. I still had green peppers in the freezer from last year. Even with these adjustments, I had more produce than I could handle.
It’s a good thing I love canning.
While I never tried my hand at pressure canning (necessary for low acid foods like meats, seafood, soups and stews, and some vegetables and fruits), I’ve been water bath canning since a young bride. When the babies started coming, I stepped back from it, but then the urge to garden returned, especially when we retired. I love that two of my daughters have followed in my footsteps on a much smaller scale, and for the two that don’t can, I’m very happy to share my jarred bounty. (Here are pics of most of what I’ve canned since I’d already given some away.)
With the passing of my mother, and later my aunt, I inherited lots of jars. I discovered the economy of ordering flats in bulk on ebay during Covid. I’ve canned for so long, I have my system down pat.
Up until the mid-1800’s, folks didn’t understand how poorly canned food and improperly sealed jars increased the chances of botulism, e-coli, and listeria. In 1858, John Landis Mason invented a resealable glass jar, modifying his design and the accompanying lids numerous times until his patent expired in 1879. Other manufacturers helped themselves to his work, and sadly, he never profited from his beloved Mason jars. He was forced into living a frugal life until his death in 1902.
In 1884, the Ball brothers, five in all, took up the glass jar manufacturing sensation, ultimately producing 245,000 jars per day in the early 1900s. Today, Ball is credited with producing 545,000 jars a day. That’s a lot of jars!
Canning jars have evolved from wire bailers and glass dome lids used with re-usable rubber rings to the flats and rings we’re familiar with today.
Canning jars are used many more ways than just preserving food. Drinking glasses, crafts, wedding table decorations, pack-n-go containers (like salads), and gifts–remember those cake and cookie ingredients in a jar? Soups and cocoa, too? Fun!–the possibilities are endless.
If you’re drowning in zucchini, here’s a jam recipe that calls for 6 CUPS. Since most recipes call for one or two cups, maybe three, but never six, this recipe caught my eye. It’s good! Even better, it’s easy.
Pina Colada Jam
6 cups sugar
6 cups shredded peeled zucchini
1 8oz can crushed pineapple, undrained
1/4 cup lime juice
2 – 3 oz pkgs pineapple Jello
1 tsp rum extract
Note: I did water bath these. The jam will be a bit runny but will thicken when it’s refrigerated. And yes, there’s specks of zucchini peel because my husband was grating too fast for me to hurry up and peel. Ha!
It doesn’t taste like the cocktail (there’s no alcohol in it) but it’s still good. Try with coconut shrimp or even as a cake filling. Delicious on toast!
Have you canned food before? Do you love to garden? What’s your favorite canned food?
It was great fun to hear about the parades you’ve enjoyed and that they are such happy memories for you and your families!
And of course, since candy is a super fun part of parades, I’m tossing a big bag of candy to
Joye!
Joye, watch for my email, and I’ll have the candy sent right out to you.
(Winner chosen by Random.org)
I love me a parade. Always have, always will. From when I was a little girl, to the years when my daughters were small, and now more recently, attending with my granddarlings, I’m entranced with the marching bands, floats, noisy go-carts with overgrown men stuffed in the driver’s seat, the tossed candy . . . The whole thing is just full of good, old-fashioned fun.
Parades have been around for centuries. Perhaps the earliest depiction is one found from drawings in a Spanish cave, evidently celebrating a successful hunt. George Washington threw numerous parades to boost morale during the Revolutionary War. Imagine the euphoria from the impromptu parades all over the country in 1945–to celebrate the end of World War 2!
With the advent of television and time, the parades got bigger and more elaborate. Who hasn’t heard of the Mardi Gras Parade, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, the Rose Bowl Parade, 4th of July Parades, and on and on?
I’m not alone in my love for parades.
Recently, we attended the annual parade in the small town near our cabin at the lake. No need to arrive 60-90 minutes early to save a spot, but we did mark our claim with chairs about a half hour beforehand. Parking isn’t a problem at all. Shade, a bit more so. The parade is over before we can barely think of it – only 45 minutes long.
The granddarlings bring a blanket and games and wait excitedly for that first police car escort to appear, signaling the parade is going to begin. Of course, each of the kids bring sacks to keep their candy haul. The treats have been upgraded lately–popsicles, water bottles, t-shirts, swag, and of course, more candy than a kid could (or should!) eat.
Here’s a few pictures to show what I mean:
Remember those overgrown men stuffed into little go-carts? They were having a ball doing figure-eights in the street.
Who doesn’t love getting their picture taken with a couple of parade clowns?
A colorful (and patriotic!) train locomotive.
Best-laid plans sometimes go awry. This old-time trolley broke down and needed a little manpower to get it off the parade route.
He’s ready to make his move for the next round of candy-tossing. Note the loot already in his bag! 🙂
Afterward, we played bingo at the local park, had some free watermelon, came out to the cabin to roast hot dogs and s’mores, and then headed home.
It was a lovely day, one that fills my heart with happy memories.
Do you love a parade as much as I do?
Have you watched a parade recently from the comfort of your lawn chair?
Or do you prefer to watch on TV?
Let’s chat – and you can win a bag of parade candy!
While writing my historical western romance, BROKEN BLOSSOMS, I relied heavily on my research with the U. S. Customs Service and their tireless fight against the never-ending smuggling of opium by the Chinese into our country. While immersed in my study, I learned that opium wasn’t the only vice smuggled in. Young, desperate Chinese women were, too, brought over to live the horrors of enslavement in San Francisco’s Chinatown brothels.
A brief mention of a woman who had dedicated her life to rescuing these women was a
young missionary by the name of Donaldina Cameron. While grieving over a broken engagement, Donaldina quit her studies to be a teacher and found herself in a career of an entirely different sort, that of doing missionary work at the Mission House, a safe place for young Chinese women run by the Presbyterian Church.
Initially, she taught the girls sewing and helped run the House, but after the manager died, Donaldina took over. Supremely devoted to the protection and nurturing of the Asian women, she kept them on a strict schedule and taught them household skills, Christian prayers and beliefs, how to interact socially in society, and so on. A fierce guardian, she fought the courts against frivolous charges to keep them out of jail and free of prostitution and the physical abuse that came with it, even going so far as to physically rescue them from brothels herself.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the practice of allowing women to do missionary work was growing and deeply appreciated. Donaldina herself accepted the Chinese culture, allowing the women their accustomed foods and decorations, yet enforcing a balance of Anglo-American customs, too, such as wearing a white dress when marrying instead of the traditional red worn by the Chinese. A somewhat amazing accomplishment since wearing white was customary at Chinese funerals, not weddings!
Donaldina never married or had children of her own. Ironically, after living in San Francisco’s Chinatown for forty years, she never learned the Chinese language. She died in 1968 at the age of 98 years. Before her death, her beloved Mission House’s name was changed to the Donaldina Cameron House, and she is credited with saving more 3,000 Chinese women from horrific enslavement.
Here’s an excerpt in BROKEN BLOSSOMS taken from my research with the U. S. Customs Service and the realistic depiction of the arrival of the Chinese into the San Francisco harbor at the time.
A horde of Chinese men, mostly in their twenties, trod next down the gangway. All of them were dressed in clean blue cotton blouses and baggy trousers. Their foreheads were shaved, and their glossy black hair was braided with silk into long queues. Carleigh recognized them as coolies, or laborers, who would work in any one of a variety of low-paying industries. They carried long bamboo poles across their shoulders. Baskets attached at each end contained their meager possessions.
A dozen or so Chinese girls followed. Though they wore tunics and trousers like other Chinese women, theirs were obviously of poorer quality; their cheeks and lips were painted a gaudy red. On their heads, they wore checked cotton handkerchiefs, the chevron of prostitution.
Ignorant of morals and the contracts they signed in China, they would service their masters in a slavery more horrible than any human being should endure. After an indelicate search by the officers, their purchasers delivered them into the charge of sallow old hags, dressed in black and carrying rings of keys at their waists.
Carleigh’s heart ached for how these girls would live. Would they ever know the warm intimacy a man’s love could give them? Would their lives always be so hopeless?
99¢ for this blog only! (Returning to full price this weekend!)
If you could dedicate your life in service to one thing, what would it be?
Living in a land-locked state like Nebraska, big bodies of water are scarce. We do have rivers and smaller lakes, though, so as you can imagine, water-front property is a high commodity. There is very little turn-over since families hang onto their land for generations. If someone does want to sell, the properties are snatched up so fast by word-of-mouth, a realtor isn’t even needed.
Hence, my dream of finding a cabin on a lake was no easy venture. I looked for 15 years before I found one that I wanted to buy. Either the property was too far away, too expensive, too junky-looking, on a river (which I didn’t want – too prone to flooding and fast current), or was a permanent home (which I also didn’t want because I, well, already had a permanent home.)
Then, one day, on Craigslist, I found a listing with an affordable price only 45 minutes from our home. It had a few decorating issues, but when my husband (who tends to be a nay-sayer) checked the construction and muttered the place “had good bones,” I knew we’d found the cabin I’d long wanted.
As coincidence would have it, we were retiring in a matter of weeks. The timing couldn’t have been better. My husband had all the time he needed to do some remodeling, and I had a blast decorating. It wasn’t long until our little cabin and beach became firmly entrenched in our hearts.
Our family treasure.
Here are a few pictures:
The wildlife is fun to see, most of which, of course, I don’t get photos of.
But here’s a couple of big fish right off our dock.
And the granddarlings fishing with their Grandpa:
Of course, the fun in the water:
Four grandsons canoeing in their great-grandfather’s canoe.
And doing flips off the dock.
The paddleboard is a kid favorite. They have more balance than I do, let me tell you!
Afterward, supper set out on long tables under the trees.
With bellies full, my son-in-law and our Golden Retriever lounging after supper.
Good times and precious memories, for sure!
Do you have a special place that your family holds dear in their hearts?
What does your family do – or where do they go – to make fun memories together?
