As told by Grandma 1/3/19:
My Mother was a wonderful seamstress, she was good at all home-making chores. She could bake, preserve any food, cook, clean, and sew. She had plenty of practice with all of us children. It if wasn't for my mother we wouldn't be fed or dressed.
I think sewing was my mothers favorite thing to do. She could make anything, jackets, dresses, there wasn't a thing she couldn't make with her sewing machine. Mother's sewing machine was at the foot of her bed, and she was glued to that machine. We would come home from school and go to find mother hard at work making us clothes.
My mother's sisters Lila and Minnie would send her packages of material scraps, and ragged coats they had picked up. Mother waited for those packages like they were gold. She would tell the boys to go get the mail, and if the package wasn't there, she would make them go back and look again! "Go look in the ditch too!" I guess she wanted to make sure it didn't get tossed there accidentally. When the package finally arrived, Mother Hardy would be ripping things apart and matching different kinds of fabric together to create different outfits for us all. She loved getting those packages.
Mother loved to make us girls cotton dresses with rick-rack decoration. One year for the Christmas program we walked to school at the 49th District and my mother had made me the most special dress. It was red and green plaid with white stripes outlining the colors. There were gold buttons from the neck to the waist and a white collar and cuffs. I loved that dress, it was perfect. At the program there was a play and songs to sing, but as soon as we returned home, my mother asked, "What did the ladies say about your dress?" That was most important! She was proud of her work.
