I’m Thankful for All You Do
Yesterday I came across these adorable embroidered linens from 1943, which are in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s Anacostia Community Museum in Washington, D.C. They are part of a days-of-the-week needlecraft kit. According to the description on the Smithsonian website, this type of embroidery kit was popular in the 1940s. These linens belonged to Mary Thompson Ford of Jersey City, New Jersey, and were likely embroidered by her daughter Blanche.
The collection is incomplete but includes five (of the original seven) tea towels, an apron, and an unfinished tablecloth.
These types of designs were popular in the 1950s and 1960s, too. I know because, as a child, I embroidered this Monday version of birds doing their laundry. It hangs in our kitchen below my mother’s painting of a rooster.
I was surprised by the Smithsonian tea towel’s depiction of Sunday. I knew that Daddy loved Mother, but I never saw him spending his early Sunday morning like this!
Neither did I see Mother bicycling to the supermarket on Wednesday mornings. She, my younger brother, and I walked to the supermarket on Saturday evenings, but, first, we crossed the alley beside our house and walked across the dime store parking lot. Then we passed the dime store and a small grocery store before going in the rear entrance of Reeks’ men’s clothing store. Mother went there every Saturday night to, as she would say, “collect,” which meant she got paid for the clothing alterations she had done for the store during the past week.
Then we came out the front door of Reeks’, turned right, and walked a block along Main Street before entering the front door of Boyd’s Market, my Daddy Leland’s supermarket where Daddy worked.
I found these tea towels yesterday to illustrate this message of encouragement I have for you this morning.
God’s blessings are abundant as I think of you, Homeschooling Mama.
I’m thankful for
every meal you cook,
every table you set,
every dish you wash,
every nose you wipe,
every book you read,
every shirt you fold,
every place you go,
every hug you give,
every back you pat,
every kiss you plant,
every child you love,
every prayer you pray,
every truth you teach,
every heart you mold.
I’m thankful that God loves you.
I’m thankful that He sent His Son to save you.
I’m thankful that God made you and your children in His very own image.
I’m thankful that you are spending your days being the mama your children need.
Thank you, God, and thank you, Mama!
Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain,
But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.
Give her the product of her hands,
And let her works praise her in the gates.
Proverbs 31:30-31