The Remnants We Sew Make Us Whole
Growing up, I spent summers with my Grams in the small town of Oberlin, Ohio. She left Oxford, Mississippi at the age of 14 in the scorching summer of 1938 with her mother, step father, and younger siblings, to move to Ohio where there was greater opportunity for the descendants of sharecroppers and enslaved people, like my family. My ancestors, and others, endured for generations and evolved into some of the most resourceful and creative beings on the planet in the process. My Grams developed the skill of turning fabric into masterpieces: ornate gowns, fine woolen suits, fabric dolls, quilts and wall art, and I consider myself fortunate to have a tiny fraction of her creativity woven somewhere in my genes, and I often wish I had much more. My Grams had a dream of being a designer, but when her family forced her to move away, it meant leaving behind a direct path to her dream: a scholarship to Mississippi Industrial, one of the few schools that admitted black people at that time.
In Ohio, my Grams took care of her younger siblings and later landed a job as a costume designer for the Oberlin College theater department. She started her own design and tailoring business in the living room of the 1,000 square foot house that she owned with my grandpa. I was the youngest daughter of their only daughter, Gail (they also had one son, my Uncle Glenn). My Grandma sewed all day and into the night, turning her talent into money which both paid for my mother’s college expenses and allowed her to turn remnants of fine fabrics that were leftover from customers into new fashions, earning my mother the title of “Best Dressed” at Ohio Northern University.
Summertimes at grandma’s meant I had eight weeks to create art projects, sketch designs, make clothes, and maybe take home a new doll (for which I helped to stitch on long, black yarn for the hair). When I wasn’t outside playing, Grandma would have me arm-deep in boxes of buttons and scraps of fabric to keep me quiet while customers came to the house and mounted her stand for fittings.
On Saturdays, Grams would instruct my grandpa to “take us downtown” (it consisted of two streets, stretching less than two blocks each), which meant we were about to embark on a weekly trip to the fabric store. I was always roaring to go but also quickly ready to leave. My youthful impatience dampened my excitement.
Going into the fabric store with my Grams was like traveling into an abyss. I never knew when we’d make it out. Grams would take a seat at a long white table where she’d flip through catalog after catalog of patterns as if the sands of time would wait, but I couldn’t. I paced in circles ‘round and ‘round the store, wandering far but keeping one eye on the whereabouts of Grams, like a bear cub with its mama. I prayed for her to get up from that seat. After what felt like sunrise to near sundown, we’d finally emerge from the store into the daylight, like small bears venturing from their den post hibernation. Grandpa always remained steady waiting at the side of the truck: starched, long sleeved, khaki shirt and matching pants, forearms resting on the edge of the white truck bed, while lifting one arm to “take a smoke.” I could not fathom how our trips to the fabric store could take so long (or how Grandpa could still be there waiting), but they always earned me ice cream, so I survived.
The pressing of the patterns, the pinning, the cutting them out - was way too much work for an 8 or 9-year-old neighborhood socialite like me. When I returned home from my neighborhood duties, voila!, I’d often find that Grandma had completed my designs while I had been too busy to assist. To my great regret, I’d been too impatient to learn to sew during those summers with her.
Now, my mother and my uncle are deceased, and my grandma is 99 years strong. My grandma’s hands are arthritic now, but design ideas fill her mind daily. She made me new table linens just two years ago, and though the stitch lines aren’t as straight, I cherish her creative spirit. I still talk to my Grams every week and visit a few times per year where we play through her fabric collection and imagine the fashions we could design.
Grams had a dream to attend Mississippi Industrial and to sell her designs into the top department stores, but she never had the opportunity to fulfill those specific dreams. Sometimes the past, and the world, gets in the way of your dreams, and the only way to lessen the blow of disappointment is through acceptance. Acceptance means that we acknowledge the disappointment we feel that our dreams didn’t quite work out as planned but that we also recognize that life itself is not only about achieving them. Sometimes life’s circumstances dictate and control, but we can still give life to the remnants that remain. In the pursuit of her dream, Grams made masterpieces out of remnants and became a self-taught, world class designer whose skill was respected and admired far outside of her small town.
It’s commonly said that “sewing mends the soul.” I think that’s because sewing, creating, and pursuing dreams is an active process through which we grow closer to knowing ourselves. With age and experience, we come to realize that the work - the art and craft - is not only about fulfilling our own desires but about what we cause others to see in themselves. My summers with Grams, surrounded by beautiful textiles, boxes of ribbon, and acreage to roam free, meant countless stories and memories, for her and for me. Grams caused me to see that I too could create freely because I was a creative being in the making. I only needed to tap into it. Without doing so, I wouldn’t quite feel whole. So these days, I’m finally learning the fine art of sewing, and I’m designing, not only to continue to weave my own story, but in many ways to continue hers.
