Tales Wrapped in Aprons

By Mimi Harrison

When most people hear about vintage things, they conjure up someone's broken-down clutter or maybe a quaint item of dress. But others, like writer EllynAnne Geisel, find in worn wood, rusty hinges and faded cloth the fingerprints of other lives. As she stood ironing a vintage apron some years ago, Geisel realized it had been carefully made by hand. That sparked a sense of connection to the woman who had cut and stitched the cloth and then ironed the apron dozens of times before her.

That feeling of kinship inspired Geisel to wonder what reactions old aprons might evoke in others and moved her to start collecting stories. For the next several years--starting out in her home state of Colorado--she toted a laundry basket of old aprons everywhere she went. She invited strangers to touch them and talk to her. Like Proust's madeleine, the aprons prompted potent memories. After Geisel met portrait photographer Kristina Loggia, a project evolved. "The Apron Chronicles" is now an exhibit traveling throughout the country (to find out where, go to apronchronicles.com) It combines Geisel's collected testimonies and Loggia's vivid portraiture to create a poetry of the familiar. With stories that cut across classes and ethnic divides and photos that capture a broad psychological landscape, the exhibit recalls a world that seems at once immediate and extinct.

There's nothing like an apron to evoke domesticity. Like a treasured baby blanket, it is rich with sentiment and associations. Store-bought or homemade, flower print or flour sack, an apron does double duty as protection and decoration. An old apron's faded pattern seems a memory of itself. Its soft, well-washed fabric feels as soothing as soup. But an apron also represents a woman kept in her place. The pert hostess aprons of the 1950s, with their printed poodles and cheery appliques, might seem these days to have tried too hard to put a good face on things. There are some Americans who would just as soon slip a burqa over their daughter's head, and others for whom an apron draped over a chair is an emblem of strength, survival and sustenance. "The Apron Chronicles" tells both sides of the story.

Among the tales on exhibit is one by Ray Moore, a lanky, leathery westerner, who shares tender memories of his grandmother cradling freshly gathered eggs in her apron. Patricia Albillar Diaz recounts Christmastime suppers of rice and beans served by welcoming, aproned neighbors. Writer Emily Prager recalls her grandmother's apron drawer and laments the demise of a "fabulous device that kept your clothes clean when there was no running water." These days, she notes, "the only aprons you see are barbecue aprons for men."

There are farmwives and churchwomen of grit and industry and waitresses who wore their aprons proudly as professionals. Men recall mothers with plenty of spunk who were up at dawn to pack lunches for school or hang wash with clothespins pulled from an apron's bottomless pocket. Grandmas figure prominently. The tales of their ease and intimacy while they sewed together or rolled out dough remind the viewer that sometimes a grandmother with a bosom might be preferable to one with biceps.

Not all is sugar and cinnamon, though; there is bitterness as well. Voices tell of unbearable marriages and emotionally distant relatives. There is the occasional stab of tragedy: a small child dies from eating poisonous berries. There are recipes. And there are surprises: a cowboy recalls his first pair of chaps, which were fashioned from his grandfather's horseshoeing apron.

Sometimes prosaic things, objects as modest as toast, can trip distant memories, commemorate struggle and celebrate love. Aprons have that power.