Feed Sack Dresses

By Tilitha Waicekauskas © 1991

Issue: July, 1991

It was hard times in the country
And our family wasn't small.
And Mama had a lot of clothes
To sew for school each fall.

I had three teenage sisters
Who needed skirts and stuff,
And sometimes Mom's material
Just wasn't big enough.

She had a lot of chickens,
And chickens must be fed.
The sacks their pellets came in
Were green or blue or red.

Sometimes the sacks were flowered.
Sometimes the sacks were plaid,
Stripes, or checks or polka dots
- they all would make me glad.

For it only took one feed sack
To make a dress for me,
But it took at lea'st a couple
For my sisters, sometimes three.

So if there weren't two that matched
- Just one of any kind -
I could always hope it was for me
If two they couldn't find.

And I'd look through the catalog
To pick out my new dress,
And Mom would cut a pattern
And she'd cut and sew and press.

She'd find a bit of rickrack,
Sometimes she crocheted lace.
She'd find some pretty buttons
Just to see my smiling face.

I always felt so pretty
When I wore my brand new dress,
And that was probably because
Each dress my Mom would bless.

And I remember Mama
- Sewing miles of seams.
I still remember every frock
- I see them in my dreams.