The following story is from an e-mail that was circulated recently.  It seems appropriate to include this in a historical website. 

Grandma's Apron

The principal use of Grandma's apron  was to protect the dress underneath.  Because she  only had a few, it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along  with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the  oven.

It  was wonderful for drying children's tears, and  on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.

From the chicken coop, the apron  was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and  sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in  the warming oven.

When  company came, those aprons were ideal hiding  places for shy kids.

And when the weather  was cold, grandma wrapped it around her  arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a  perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.

Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that  apron.

From the garden, it carried all  sorts of vegetables.  After the peas had been  shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the  fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that  had fallen from the trees.

When  unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron  could dust in a matter of seconds.

When  dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the  porch, waved her apron, and the men knew it was  time to come in from the fields to eat.

It will be a long time before  someone invents something that will replace that  'old-time apron' that served so many  purposes.

REMEMBER:  Grandma used  to set her hot baked apple pies on the windowsill to cool.  Her granddaughters set  theirs on the windowsill to thaw.  They  would go crazy now trying to figure out how many  germs were on that apron.  I don't think I ever caught anything from an  apron.