The feed sack lady is Darlene Zimmerman.
You can google her to learn more.

Thank you Ramona. I loved walking down memory lane with you.

I also am a late 50's model. My mom has talked of wearing feedsack clothing and using feedsacks to make a bedspread while in high school home ecomonics class. My mom was born in 35, the youngest in a very poor family.

40's model here, but my granny lived with us and she was a seamstress. She made most of our school clothes out of feed and flour sacks. Most were calicoes and most were I guess pastels, but there was a lot of reds, yellows, blues and greens.I remember granny going through the Sears catalog and seeing a dress she wanted to make then drawing the pattern herself on old newspaper. She sewed all our clothes on her old Singer Treadle machine. Wish i had that today!!

I hated wearing those feed sack dresses and will not use the thirties fabrics of today in my quilts. At times chicken feed came in plain muslin bags with only the picture of a rooster on it and no matter how many times they were bleached the rooster remained. These bags were used for dish towels which are still around and my dad's undershorts. The rooster always ended up on his butt.

I'm an early 40's but have memories of feed sack dresses. Both my grandmother's raised poultry and saved all the feed sacks and flour sacks for my mom so she could make dresses for me. My first coat was my dad's navy peacoat cut up and redone for a child's coat. Don't think they ever wasted anything, but don't remember ever feeling deprived or poor though I'm sure we were at the time.

I was born in 1945.... but my grandmother made a lot of sunsuits and dresses for me and my sisters. I sure wish I still had them.

Loved your story too Ramona! Being from the 50's, I don't have any feedsack stories, except I have made a couple of quilts with the reproductions because I love the colors. My 90's model daughter doesn't like the fabrics at all (prefering batiks) but I am going to send her your story Ramona, so she can understand the history behind it. I hope you have these memories written down because they are so valuable to the younger generations.

I didn't show up until the late 50's. But my father's mother still cooked on a old wood stove, and I have memories of her giving me a perm one summer using "rag rollers"...strips of torn muslin for the rollers. She made some quilts, and though I asked for, and expected to receive, the one she made for my father, my sister saw to it that it did not come to me after his death. That was a hard blow. Maybe someday I will make a reproduction of it from my memory. Anyway, I do remember the very cold winter nights sleeping at her house, as they had one central wood (or maybe coal) burning heater that sat in the center of the living room down stairs. The heat would drift upstairs through decorative large vents in the floor of the bedrooms. I also remember Grandma made the best homemade biscuits on that old stove.

So, I am not a 30's baby, but my Grandma never did let go of many of the way she always did things....and I benefited from that.

I have a quilt that my great grandmother made back in the 30's and my mom says it is made from all her(great grandma's) old dresses. Had it appraised and it was worth $500.00 only. The lady said there are way too many 30's quilts around because babyboomers are getting their parents things now. it is in great shape. That's about all I know from the 30's other than I really love the fabrics from that era.

I love to hear the stories. I grew up in the 50's so missed all of that. I was a hippie. so lots of denim, beads and embroidery. We all have our stories.