Millinery

As a kid I knew that one of the jobs my Grandma Hilda had as a young woman was that of

sewing at various factories at various times in her life. I know that she used to work at a

place called Baer-Sternberg, or a reasonable facsimile. I now wonder if this is the same

Baer of Stix, Baer and Fuller.

Several times, when we were staying with her in St. Louis, I would take out the current item

of sewing or knitting that I was working on. One night, she asked to see what I was working on,

which was very unusual. She began to tell me how she worked at the downtown at Baer-

Sternberg in the sewing department. It was the company's policy that the "girls" could

take home any material that was in the remnant boxes. Grandma said she never took any

menants for two reasons: after sewing all day, the last thing she wanted to do was to go

home and make dresses for herself. The second reason was, and how typical of Hilda this

is, she did not want to take anything she couldn't afford to buy.

On this particular night, she told me how she used to go window shopping after work.

One time, she saw a particular attractive hat in the Garland's window display. She

liked it enough to take some remnant pieces of felt and feathers and duplicated the hat she

had seen at Garland's.

She got a lot of compliments from her "girl friends," so she made more copies from

different stores. She emphasized, she didn't use anything but remnants and only for

herself.

One day "the boss" stopped her in the work room and said, "I know what you are up to, Hilda." She got flustered and said, "We've always been welcomed to use the remnants for our own sewing." He laughed and said, "I don't mean using the scraps. I mean the way you are making those knock-offs. I'll keep my mouth shut if you make one for my wife. You do a really good job; if I didn't know you couldn't afford them, I'd think they were the real thing."

I can't remember a time that I haven't been "making things" and trying to duplicate

patterns in crochet, knitting and sewing. I've always wonder where this trait came from

because my Mom had no interest in sewing or crafts. Finally, when I was in my 40's,

I found out I was a "knock-off artist" just like my Grandmother.