Memoirs

Grandmom's Machine

My eyes were level with the shiny needle as it moved up and down through the flowered material. The needle tick-tick-ticked twice as fast as my grandmom’s feet moved on the black iron treadle just inches above the wooden floor. I got hypnotized to the steady soothing rhythm. She stopped pedaling and frowned at me as my tiny fingers clung to the edge of the gleaming walnut cabinet. I backed up.

“You wouldn’t want to get your fingers caught under there, Connie,” she warned, and my heart beat a little faster.

“I knew somebody who sewed right through their finger once, and they hollered louder than you ever have. They were a lot bigger than you, too. Now don’t go off pouting. I see that lip hanging down. I’ll let you sew when you’re bigger.”

Grandmom kept her promise and later on she did let me use her machine. I succeeded in making an apron out of a feed sack just like she did. Mine was gathered with a waist band and skirt that only covered my front bottom half, and I felt as important as Julia Child prancing around in the kitchen with it on. Those aprons were the easy ones, and she taught me how to make them quickly, but others she made were works of art. I never did learn the trick to applying bias tape and piping which Grandmom magically added so easily to her aprons and other sewing projects. As is the nature of little girls, when the territory was not off limits, I soon lost interest and went on to other things more amusing.

I always acquainted sewing with my Grandmom and whenever the word is mentioned, I see her leaning forward over her treadle machine, guiding a piece of material with her left hand and reaching toward the spinning wheel with her right, all the while moving her right foot forward then her left heel back on the treadle. She was eighty-five when she died in 1981, and my Aunt Sadie, her eldest daughter, inherited the Singer. Aunt Sadie was not what you would call very domesticated and the closed walnut cabinet was relegated to storage in her basement.

After Aunt Sadie passed away in 2000, I received a surprising call from her husband, my Uncle Nick. He said Aunt Sadie told him before she died that if I wanted to come and get it, the sewing machine was to be mine. There was never a question in my mind that I would make the journey from Florida back to Delaware for Grandmom’s favorite thing. It was no easy matter getting it back up those wooden steps leading down into Uncle Nick’s basement, but somehow we managed, and it survived the journey back to Florida. It now sits in my livingroom in a place of honor, lovingly polished and preened over every week. I believe I am feeling Grandmom’s DNA whenever I touch it.

Inside its drawers I found several little glass tubes holding needles and oiled raw cotton. Now I know what that oily smell is…3 in 1. I am sorry I never asked, but now I wonder when and how my grandmom got her sewing machine. My grandparents were almost poor and money was hard to come by so I imagine someone did without to buy the Singer. I found the Company’s website and a place to email the serial number. The message I received told me it was manufactured on June 19th, 1910, in Elizabeth, N.J. Poppop and Grandmom were married in 1913 so as I thought, they did not buy it new. Whatever it cost, it was a bargain. After all, not needing electric it could even be powered by cookies. I wonder if Grandmom had trouble getting used to the treadle. I know I did. It was like patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time. No wonder those 1920s women had such shapely calves. That treadle was a workout.

There were thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of Singer treadle sewing machines manufactured so even though it is an antique, money-wise it is not valuable. To me it is priceless, and I plan to pass it and this story on to my granddaughter, who I hope will value it and my memories of Grandmom as much as I do.