I’ve written before about my great-grandmother. What I didn’t tell you is that she died three months before I was born. From the stories my brother tells me, she always had a cookie jar on top of the fridge, filled with cookies or candy that were just sure to ruin his supper (which is another word I had to re-work back into my vocabulary because it’s supper, not dinner). My aunt has memories of her, too, one of which is the image of her feeding piglets (or working in the garden) with a particular blue sunbonnet on.

The sunbonnet here isn’t blue, but she had made this one and saved it for “good occasions.” The photo on the left is my grandmother when she was about 9 months old. These sunbonnets were all hand-made (cotton and a sewing machine), sometimes from material that came from patterned seed sacks. Slats were then cut from cardboard and put in the brim to hold it out away from the face to shield it from the sun.

Back then, tossing on a sunbonnet for everyday yard work and gardening was common practice. Fast forward to the days of ball caps and Jackie-O sunglasses and as few clothes as possible (just enough to still be fashionable) in order to get a tan while riding a lawn mower (key word riding).

This sunbonnet was resting in a trunk in my grandma’s basement, waiting to tell its story from just before I was born. I guess in a way, I have memories of my great-grandmother now, too.

Until we walk again …