Everything I know about keeping a home, I learned in Home Ec.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about my Home Ec. classes that I took in junior high and high school. Yes, those were back in the days when it was called Home Ec. Now it is referred to as Family and Consumer Sciences.

I honestly believe that those classes were some of the most valuable classes that I ever took in preparing me for life. No matter what we do in our lives, knowing how to cook, bake, sew (especially to sew on a button), plan a meal and create a budget, are all great skills to have in your repertoire.

I took my first Home Ec. class in 7th grade in 1971. I remember baking muffins for the first time ever in that class. I also remember when we had a budgeted amount to spend on a meal and we had to purchase, cook, set the table and invite a teacher to come and join us for the meal. I learned to roast and carve my first turkey in that class. We were taught how to bake a cake from scratch and decorate it. An entire year was spent on the science of foods from cooking and baking and meal management to nutrition.

Then in 8th grade, it was clothing construction. I learned to sew that year and I remember that my very first project was making a stuffed animal – a frog. From there I made a top to wear with my ever stylish bell bottom jeans. Then we learned to sew other more difficult pieces of clothing. I began to sew all of my clothes in 8th grade. Our family didn’t have a lot of money, so learning to sew really helped with our family clothing budget. Also, I was able to wear a lot more stylish clothes because I sewed them myself.

We studied fabrics and textiles and learned how to wash clothes and why some fabrics needed to be dry cleaned and what dry cleaning really was. 7th and 8th grade Home Ec. classes were required. After that, all Home Ec. classes were elective.

I enrolled in Home Ec. classes throughout my high school years. My last Home Ec. class in my senior year taught me how to refinish furniture. This is another skill that has come in quite handy.

Yes, I have been looking back and thinking about everything I learned in Home Ec. such as: sewing, interior decorating, baking/cooking, learning cooking terms, cooking on a budget, dinner etiquette, goal setting, time management, consumerism, color and design, first aid, child development, budgeting, marriage and family, food and nutrition, clothing construction, meal management, child care, fashion, and textiles and designs. Everything I was taught in those classes has served me well in my life.

Home Ec. classes were becoming quite unpopular when I was in High School. It was 1974 so who needed Home Ec.? The Women’s Lib movement was in full gear and focusing on a career associated with the home was deeply frowned on. I didn’t care as I loved those classes.

Home Ec. prepared me for the future. I used everything I learned in those classes about keeping a home even when I was working full time. I refer back to some of the information I learned every now and then. Yes, I still have a notebook of my old Home Ec. syllabus and papers.

A few years back I noticed this book at Barnes and Noble and I snatched it up right away.

Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson

I love this book as it reminds me of all of my old Home Ec. textbooks and it is a book I refer to quite often. So, what skill did you learn in Home Ec. that you are using in your life right now?

Ironing

When I wrote the post regarding aprons, I wrote about my memories of learning to iron when I was a little girl.  I was surprised at how much more I remembered about ironing day.  First of all and most importantly my mom had the necessary equipment to get the job done.  This was typical of my mom.  After all being a homemaker was her vocation so she would have made sure that she had everything she needed to accomplish a task. 

The ironing board had a thick pad and cover.  The iron itself rested on a metal plate on the ironing board and the iron cord was looped up a rod that was clamped to the side of the ironing board.  This kept the cord up and out of the way while someone was ironing.  To the right of the ironing board was a plastic folding bin that held the items to be ironed.  All of these items had been sprinkled with water and rolled up to stay moist.  Next to the iron was a glass bottle filled with water.  There was a sprinkler top on the bottle so that you could sprinkle a little water on the item you were ironing and this helped get out the wrinkles.  Last but not least there was a can of starch to use on shirts. 

Okay, I know, right now you are thinking - hey I just take the shirts out of the dryer and hang them up and we are good to go.  Well, not in the 1960's.  I think my mom ironed anything that wasn't moving.  We ironed handkerchiefs, boxer shorts, white undershirts, tea towels, sheets, pillowcases, shirts, pants, dresses, and more.  It was a way of life until permanent press fabric was made.

Isn't it something how much a smell can take you back in time?  Some smells such as spray starch do that for me.  I love the smell of it as it reminds me of those days when my mother was teaching me to iron.  Perhaps that is why one of my favorite candle scents is "Fresh Linen."  I have always loved all things domestic so it should not be a surprise to anyone that I had a toy ironing board and iron to play with along with an entire play kitchen.  Let's not forget the ever popular Easy Bake Oven.   Okay, now I'm getting off track.

Being home all day means I have the time to do things the way I was trained by my mother.   On Monday I do the clothing laundry and on Tuesday I launder bedding, towels and any throw rugs.  So today I decided that I was going to take some of my son's 100% cotton shirts that he wears to work and I was going to iron them all at once.  Usually I grab one and iron it quickly before he needs it.  Here is the result of my work: 

Four crisply pressed work shirts all ready to be worn. 

I will admit to you that while I was ironing I watched a movie from Netflix on my little kitchen t.v.  (During my mom's day she watched the ever popular General Hospital and Jeopardy when she was ironing.)  After I was done with these four shirts I started looking around and I saw the basket of just dried sheets and pillowcases.  My mom always ironed the sheets as they did soften even more when they were ironed.  But I think the real reason she ironed them was the way they looked all nice and neatly pressed and folded in her linen closet. 

I ironed the sheets and I went one step further by lightly spraying them with a little linen scented fabric spray.  Here are the sheets and pillowcases nicely folded and ready to be put away. 

Later in the day I decided to put them on our bed immediately.  As I unfolded the sheets and I lifted them in the air to fluff them and let them fall on the bed I remembered how much easier it is to make a bed with sheets that have been neatly pressed and folded.  They just seem to fall into place. 

No, it is not necessary to iron the sheets.  The reason I will continue to do it is because I enjoy ironing and best of all I enjoy the feel of ironed sheets on my bed.  It is a little bit of work for a big luxury.  I have no children at home during the day and if I did I doubt I would take the time to do an afternoon of ironing.  It is a little dangerous to try to iron when there are little ones running around the ironing board.  I know that my mom would agree with me that she is thankful for permanent press fabrics and that it is not necessary to spend an afternoon or day each week doing the ironing.  She would also agree with me that somehow a shirt that has been pressed with a little starch always looks sharp and that yes, those sheets are nice when they are ironed.

Being a full time homemaker at the age of 50, without any children home during the day, means that I can take the time to do some extra special things for my family that I did not have the time to do when I was employed outside of the home. 

I would challenge you to find something special to do for your family this week.  It may not be ironing but it could be taking the time to bake a homemade special treat that they enjoy.

I Love Aprons!

I love aprons. When I see an apron I get that good ole fashioned home feeling. Sometimes I feel that I must be a dying breed as hardly any women I know wear an apron.

If you watch a food show on the food network you never see one person wearing an apron. Okay, perhaps on Iron Chef, but that would be the only exception. When did aprons become a symbol of cooking weakness?

I have always worn an apron in the kitchen. When I was a small child wearing an apron meant that I was being like my mother. Before helping to bake cookies my mother would tell me to go get an apron. My mom kept her aprons in a drawer in the china cabinet in our dining room. Opening that drawer you would find a colorful menagerie of assorted gingham aprons. All of them had either been made by my mother or my grandmother during my mother’s engagement. Those aprons had been pressed and folded neatly and placed in the drawer. Yes, they had each been starched and ironed.

Those were the days of having two separate laundry days. One was for washing and one was for ironing. Monday was wash day and Tuesday was ironing day. My mother would start to teach us to iron when I was around 10 years old. We started out with pillowcases, tea towels and sheets. Yes, can you believe we did that? You would rarely do that now if ever. I am considering resurrecting ironing sheets in my household because they do make them softer and when a sheet is ironed it is easier to fold and keep in a linen closet.

My mother would slowly work us up to ironing the aprons. She had a special way to iron the aprons that she would teach us and we had to do it her way. After doing the initial ironing of the apron you had to iron the apron strings. Then you had to fold the apron in half lengthwise and run an iron over the fold to make a crease, fold it again lengthwise and run the iron over that fold. Then you folded the apron strings neatly and then folded the rest of the apron so the end result was one nicely folded, starched and ironed apron. My mother always started each day with a cleaned, starched and pressed apron.

There was an immense amount of pride taken in doing laundry and ironing back then. My mom would be mortified if we wore anything that had a stain on it. She had a special basket of stain removal concoctions and she always managed to get the stains out. She would have also been equally disapproving of wearing something that had not been ironed and free of all wrinkles. We did not have a lot of money when I was growing up but our clothes were always clean and pressed.

The last time I visited my mother she handed me a sack. I opened it up and there were her aprons. She no longer used them. She is living in a very small apartment and she has one apron that she keeps on hand.

The aprons that she gave me are the ones I used along with her when I was a child. They are made from different bright colored gingham. On each apron she cross stitched or “chicken scratched” a different design.  I recognized each and every apron and I was filled with nostalgia. One apron I did not recognize and my mother told me that it was an apron my grandmother had made for “special” as grandma would have referred to it. Special meant when company came for a special Sunday dinner. It was never used as an everyday apron.

My Mother's Aprons

More of my mother's aprons

Grandma's Special Apron

I will not use these aprons in my kitchen but I will display them one at a time around my kitchen. They help me remember happy days of childhood when I couldn’t wait to grow up and be a wife and mommy and cook in the kitchen using aprons of my own.

I was so delighted – really I was – to receive the book “The Apron Book” by EllynAnne Geisel.   It is a nostalgic look at aprons, complete with pictures of some very old aprons. I am obviously not alone in how I feel about aprons from days gone by.  The book also includes some patterns. It is a beautiful book of pictures and stories – wonderfully written that will conjure up great memories of days gone by.

I have two aprons that I use. They are a butcher chef’s design. I like that they cover the entire front of my body so that I can get messy and I don’t need to worry about getting anything spattered on my shirt. The apron protects me. Also my aprons have two pockets. I not only wear an apron when I am cooking but I also wear an apron when I am cleaning or working around the house. When I don an apron I get serious about the task at hand. The pockets come in handy and again the apron protects my clothing. When I am cooking and need potatoes I go down to our basement and I pick out potatoes and onions and place them in the front of my apron, bring up the ends in order to carry the potatoes up the stairs of the basement to be deposited in my sink for cleaning. I do this when I am cleaning when I am collecting items that need to be put away.

One of my aprons

I have plans to make aprons and I have purchased some patterns. I love the retro designs as they make me thank of grandma’s kitchen. Grandma wore an apron that was more like a smock over her dress. She wore that apron from the moment she got up until she went to bed. It was her uniform and it protected her clothing. Grandma didn’t have a lot of dresses to wear and she took great care of what she did have.

                            McCall's M5643  and McCall's 3979

                                               McCall's M5358

Aprons can be stylish and pretty and they are very practical. So when did aprons become a thing of the past? Not by me. I love history and the past and that is why I am drawn to aprons and what they represent to me: home, family, good times, homemade goodies and a time when life was simpler. Yes it was simpler. Okay, I know that grandma also lived without refrigeration and used a wringer washer that made chores harder and the chores took longer. But grandma didn’t have to worry about the battery on her lap top draining, about power going out (she didn’t have any), she didn’t have to worry about what her kids were looking at on the internet nor what was on t.v. Grandma lived peacefully with a day filled with chores and the satisfaction of having a home, family, putting on an apron and preparing a simple meal, cleaning up afterward and hand washing the dishes. While she was cleaning up from a supper meal the family would be in the kitchen chatting and talking about their day and the life on their small farm. There was none of the present day “electronic” distractions. It was simply conversation centered around daily chores and housework. It was a simpler way and to me an apron is an example of that life.