Welcome to SunbonnetSmart.com
Learn practical information to
help you through impractical times…
…with your Friend in Quilting:
“Woo-Hoo! What fun, I’m back! But…”
is my most recent quilting post.
Have you ever been on a course of action and, all of a sudden, there are side roads you didn’t anticipate, leading off into areas unknown?
For the full post, please click here.
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…Then DOWNLOAD vintage books, patterns,
paper dolls and childhood delights!
How to Create a life of healing abundance.
The first things to keep in mind are sayings we’ve
heard all of our lives:
Home is where the HEART is.
Keep a good HEAD on your shoulders.
Have a ROOF over your head.
Put FOOD on the table.
Have CLOTHES for the body.
Keep MONEY in the bank.
Seek BEAUTY for the soul.
AND
Be sure you know the difference between
NEEDS and WANTS.
In the meantime,
if you are here for the….
…Higgins Family Reunion, click the license:
…Quilting, click the Barbara Fritchie Quilt Block:
…love of Scotland, click the Clan Crest:
…fear of financial difficulties, click the dollar bill:
And now, back to learning practical
information for impractical times:
A Modern Madonna in 1932 and, now in 2010.
Years ago, when the United States of America was in the Depression Era, there were people who sadly jumped out of windows in despair and there were people who not only survived, but prospered. The times were not the reason, but each individual’s reaction to the times that brought them success or failure.
Now, we face many challenges, but a great thing we have going for us is that it’s happened before, within reach of our lifetimes. If we look to the lean years of the Depression, we can find the skills necessary to survive and prosper in what are becoming our Recession Years.
An expectant mother of the 1930s.
The main difference between then and now, though, is that while the adults of the Depression were raised with life skills making them independent and self-sufficient, we have been raised to depend on the labor of others to provide us with our necessities. Many people now days are not only ignorant of what it takes to be self-sustainable, they don’t even know what questions to ask.
That’s where Sunbonnet Smart can help. We know the questions to ask, we’ve asked them and found the answers! And, best of all, we are looking forward to sharing them with you!
Why Sunbonnets?
Why would we choose a Sunbonnet as our symbol of triumph? Our symbol of not only surviving, but thriving? Because Sunbonnets sat upon the heads of some of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century. Are we talking about Henry Ford? Thomas Edison? Or Albert Einstein?
A Mother picking through berries with her children in 1910.
No! We mean the many heroes who kept the home fires burning when there wasn’t any wood; who had dinner on the table when there wasn’t any food and who figured out a way to water the garden when there wasn’t any water. That’s right. We’re talking about those great Americans, women in Sunbonnets, who worked us out of World War I, the Depression and World War II one macaroni and cheese dinner at a time. These women put on brave smiles everyday when they awakened to a new day of uncertainly and need, many times not knowing how to make it through, and yet, somehow they did.
Women: always doing their best to keep “it all together.”
These are the women that may have tended chickens, buying them as peeps and raising them up to produce the eggs that could be sold for “egg money.” As most women did not work outside the home, but worked very hard within it, there were not many accepted ways for them to bring in income. But, by making some “egg money” and then turning it into a “nest egg” stored in a safe place in the home, there was cash for emergencies.
Brightly colored printed feed sacks made hard times more fun.
These are the women that provided clothes for their families by sewing feed sacks together to make fabric. The feed, gain and flour companies had found that if they colored their sacks with patterned motifs, home sewers looked for sacks with matching patterns in the shipment and bought supplies ahead just so they could have matching sacks. It took about four large sacks to make a dress and surely the “thrill of the hunt” made each completed length of feed sack yard goods a treasure.
These are the mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts and friends of families that knitted afghans, hats scarves, mittens and socks to keep everyone warm. These are the women who answered the door when a stranger knocked and invited them in for their own portion of the soup on the stove in a kettle. These are the women who used the fabric they had bought for their own new dress to make a new dress for their daughter so she could go to the school dance in something never seen. And, the list goes on and on with the unsung love and sacrifice women throughout the 20th century bestowed on those around them.
A Sunbonnet Heroine enjoying a few moments.
Yes! We want to celebrate the women of the United States and the world who went through not only the Depression, but all of the difficult times during World Wars I and II as well. They made it through and so can we!
We’ll worked together to gain the knowledge to go through hard times, if we don’t know it already. We’ll each wear our Sunbonnets denoting self reliance and sustainability, remembering that independence begins at home. And we’ll work toward achieving a balanced living space in a centered home, a sanctuary home, where ever that may be and with whatever companion/s we choose.
Or, if it’s just you rattling around the castle right now, like I was for twenty-three years, by the way, that’s fine as well. All the more reason to become self sustaining, independent and reliant, don’t you think?
Her name was Thelma. She and her rifle had it all figured
out. Note the newspaper on the bed, rain gutters bringing
water into a tub and beans growing up strings on the
“porch” of her sod house. Now, this is a castle!
So, put on that Sunbonnet, put on your 1930s apron and get to work! Because, oh yes! I forgot to mention that this new way of living takes lots of work!
But the rewards are great!
Why, just think of Thelma sleeping on her porch on a summer’s night with the prairie breezes blowing through the shades…
And now, we pause for a public service announcement:
Never being one to be gender discriminatory,
Sunbonnet Smart offers a photo of the one man
who was smart enough to wear a Sunbonnet
in the Depression: Fred “Take-the-Picture-Quick”
McDonald of Texas who groomed his son to walk
in his shoes, even if they were on the wrong feet.
All images owned and copyrighted by SunbonnetSmart.com and the use of them is strictly forbidden without written permission, except for the magnificent photo of the Mother picking through berries with her children in 1910 that may be purchased from the eBay store you’ll find here.
