Needles, Rags, and an Old Peach Tree

From teacher Lois Prout's classroom, "one can see a two room home made of packing case wood" with paper nailed on as a flimsy covering, "in which a large family is planning to spend the winter."

Inside the classroom, one ten-year-old girl carefully cuts along markings on a man's worn blue shirt, to create three pieces. Another mends kneeholes in a man's pair of wool underwear. A third shows Miss Prout the half-yard of new red cloth her dad had bought her. Combined with some other scraps, it would make enough for an apron.

In 1930, the fourth and fifth grade girls at Harriet School altered old, worn-out clothes into wearable ones that "will clothe children who otherwise might suffer from the severe weather. Stockings, silk, wool, or cotton, are being painstakingly mended...and even old underwear is being cut down to keep little boys and girls warm."

Not only were the children sewing usable garments going back into the community, they were doing it with style--they were hand-sewing on bias tape.

This is the colored decorative strip seen around the edges of things like potholders and aprons. It is folded three times and is devilishly difficult to sew accurately by hand. No problem for these ten-year-olds.

The girls also picked peaches from a tree next to the school and made peach jam. They canned tomatoes, pears, pickles, and grape and crab apple jelly. They made taffy apple refreshments for a school party. Oh, and they plan to redecorate the home ec's model dining room.

There was no stopping these Ypsi girls.

Miss Prout is one of Ypsi's unsung heroes of the Depression. With some needles, some worn-out clothing, and an old peach tree she taught two grades of girls how to create useful, warm, and nourishing things to benefit the community around them.

Dusty D is in awe of the grit and resourcefulness of this dedicated teacher. Hats off to Lois Prout.