A Mother’s Day memory

A picture of my mother, the handmade hanky and a bouquet of Black Eyed Susans from the field outside my house. I was about eight or nine years old, which would make the year 1951 or ‘52. It was almost Mother’s Day and I wanted to give my mother something special. Having no money and no way to go to town I decided to create her a handkerchief.

There were usually plenty of flour sacks in Mama’s scrap bag so I dug around until I found one large enough to make my treasure. I cut about a ten-inch square of cloth and used a #2 pencil to draw the word “MOTHER”. I then found some red embroidery thread and outlined the letters. I turned under the edges and hemmed the handkerchief by hand, then used red crochet yarn to crochet a border.

There was no wrapping paper in the house so I found a brown paper lunch sack, cut it flat, drew a flower on it with a crayon and wrapped my gift, using twine string to secure the package.

By the time I got all this work completed it was Saturday before Mother’s Day and the field outside our house was yellow with Black Eyed Susans. I walked into the field and picked a handful of the pretty flowers, came back into the house and gave my mother her handmade present along with the bouquet. She pressed some of the flowers in her bible and used them for bookmarks, until they crumbled, but I never knew what happened to the handkerchief.

Mama died in 2005 and my sister and I tackled the chore of going through her things; eighty-four years of memories.

While rummaging through a World War I trunk, which had belonged to my grandfather, I found folded in a corner the handmade handkerchief from more than fifty years before. It was not as beautiful as I had pictured in my memory. Of course it had yellowed over the years and there were some spots, although I’m sure the handkerchief had never been used. The lettering was not even or well spaced and the embroidery skills needed improvement. The crocheted border was pulled too tightly, making the edges of the handkerchief pucker.

As years went by I was able to buy Mama more beautiful presents. Some gifts had cost a fair amount of money and had made her smile when she opened them. But not one of those store bought items was in her World War I treasure trunk.