NikkiLu

I just talked to my DH who was the youngest of 10 children - he was born in 1940 and the oldest was born in 1920 - his Mom had a baby every 2 years for 20 years!!!!! Most were born/raised during the depression and they lived on a farm just a few miles out of town in the middle of Missouri. He said that they raised cows, sheep, pigs and chickens and that every Sat. his dad would go to the feed store and bring home sacks of feed for the animals. They had 100 pound sacks - however, in the picture above, it looks like 50 pound sacks. His Mom made sheets and pillowcases out of the white ones. The girls (5 girls and 5 boys) would fight over who got to go to town with Dad and help pick out the sacks as that meant a new dress for a lucky girl. Grandma was a quilter also. I have several of her old quilts that were made out of feedsacks and I believe all of the white used in the tops were feedsacks, as well as the backing. They seems to have held up fairly well, but they are of a very coarse fabric. Can't say the same thing about the bindings though - they are very worn and frayed. Grandma bought denim and made the boys overalls - they did not wear blue jeans he says. He doesn't know if she made the girls "bloomers" and slips or not. But, he said that she definitely did not make the boys their underwear - it was store bought. He said that she made all of the boys shirts out of "manly" prints. He doesn't know if the girls handmade, feedsack dresses were looked down upon by the "city girls".

Then, after he and I married we had chickens and had to buy feed in feedsacks for them. Now it was in paper sacks. But, about 20 years ago, they came out with printed fabric feedsacks and he bought as many bags that he could. I opened up the sacks, took out the stitching, shook out the corn/feed (outside) and washed them. The fabric is coarse and I still have not used them - they are in a big stack in my closet. They are back to paper now.