Catherine Sevenau

Opener of doors, teller of tales, family scribe.

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2.17 Buttons and Bobbins

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San Jose ~ I don’t remember Mom being home much. Betty remembers her buried behind a paperback beneath a cloud of smoke, sleeping with her black eye-mask and feather pillow over her head, yelling at us if we disturbed her.

She’d cook herself a rare sirloin steak when none of us were around and if anyone walked in on her, she hunched over it like a dog with a bone, afraid we might try and take it from her. Our mother survived on steak, Kents, green tea, U-NO Bars, paperbacks, and pills.

Sewing was Mom’s salvation. I arranged the silver straight pins in her red pincushion and tidied her metal bobbins and wooden spools of colored threads. I liked keeping her sewing box organized. I also played with her button collection that was kept in an old clear glass jar. There were hundreds of two-hole or four-hole buttons of every color, size, and shape, made of plastic, wood or metal, buttons she’d collected and buttons her mother had collected. I strung them into necklaces as I sat at her feet.

Cathy and Claudia, Easter 1956

She sewed most of our clothes: for me dresses of checks and plaids with white collars and puffed sleeves, trimmed with rickrack and small ties, shirred and smocked and pleated and tucked. She made our school clothes, all of our yearly Easter outfits, and our flannel nightgowns. She made our blouses and boleros, even our belts, hunched in concentration over her black and gold Singer, foot constantly working the floor pedal while her hands deftly fed the material under the needle, the steady hum ceasing only when she stopped to reverse the stitch or finish a seam. She measured us, laid out the material and pinned the patterns to it, then cut the fabric with her heavy, black-handled pinking shears. With a scatter of straight pins in her mouth, she slipped the newly seamed outfit on us, sticking us with pins as she fitted us, mumbling, “stand still and quit sniveling.” Sewing was the only normal thing she did with any regularity. It kept her basted together.

to be continued…

© 2018. Catherine Sevenau.
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Comments

  1. I’m now convinced we are sisters! I was 13 before anything covering my body came from a store. That black and gold machine was a part of the furnishings in our big family room in a cabinet that folded up and made it look like a small table. The window above it was to the back yard and the bayou that flowed behind it, except during hurricane season when it flowed right up through the backdoor. My friends used to tell me how wonderful it was that my mother sewed for me. The dresses looked almost exactly the same inside out (she lined everything). Can you imagine?

    As to the “Toni treatments”, my mom had had rheumatic fever in her young life and when it was over her hair had lost its curl. Usually, she just went down the street to the most local hairdresser for hair care. Right before Easter one year this lady took a vacation, thus (not realizing the most important day of the year was coming, I’m sure), mom decided to rely on me to do the treatment! Aargh! It did stink!!! So out came those rods and the Toni was purchased and I went to work. I was terrified to do it. Not only was it Easter, but the word permanent scared me. I remember nothing about the outcome, but I do remember how my mother praised her tight curly look as she put on her Easter “bonnet” and thanked me profusely. Daddy was also required to brag on my work. (maybe they both thought they’d discovered my lifetime career) More embarrassing…she told everyone at church “my daughter did this perm!”

    We should have lunch or a glass of wine some time. I’ll bet there are more similar stories. I love your writing…every time! Maggie

  3. All that sewing is pretty impressive. Maybe it was the only way she could show her love for you.