Nearly Wordless Wednesday: 5/16/12

They once belonged to my great-grandmother, Mae Barrett Williams

I've always adored these antique cut-glass buttons from my mother's vast sewing stash. My great-grandmother gave them to Mom when I was a toddler, adding that she'd never used the buttons on any dress she'd ever made. "The edges of the buttonholes are sharp, and wear out the thread," Maw-Mae said.

They probably date from the late 1890s through the 1920s. Mom's kept them for nearly 40 years, preferring not to use them despite major advances in sewing thread technology. We've seen many gorgeous buttons in fabric stores, but none quite like these.

Antique cut-glass buttons from my mother's collection
Heard County, Georgia—11 July 2010

Fragments of days gone by

I'm 11 feet tall! Raaaawwwrrr! (6 April 2012)

I've talked before about what people did a century ago with their broken dishes. It's the darnedest thing, but I find dishware fragments nearly everywhere I go—including my own yard. Last weekend was no exception. Nearly every place is an archaeological dig, so to speak.  

Forgotten places, too

I found these 1940s fragments in an empty lot while walking my dogs.
(LaGrange, Georgia—April 2010)

What was that in the blog title about places?

Whenever I find old-fashioned plants just growing alongside the road (or in any other unexpected place), I look around for signs that people once lived near those plants. For example: daffodils aren't native to North America. All the daffs here—especially the old-timey varieties—were brought here by the first white settlers.

So when I'm hiking through the woods, across a pasture, or down a country road and see a big clump of happy yellow trumpets waving at me, I know they didn't just sprout legs and mosey on over to their current location. Somebody planted them in a deliberate, thoughtful manner, just to add some beauty and color to the site.

That somebody was likely a woman.