Payne Township, Sedgwick County, Kansas - March 1874
“I don’t like the idea of my wife having to work to help support…” He looked at Mum whose face showed how pleased she was at her idea.
She rose and walked back to the trunk, pulling out another cloth bag. Returning, she turned it over and emptied it. Several rolls of delicate handmade lace fell in a heap next to her bobbins.
“When we go to town next, I’ll take these pieces along and show two or three shopkeepers. I have a feeling they’ll be interested.”
Dad held his hands in the air in a gesture of defeat. “You win. It might be a better answer than taking me away from the farm.”
Mum clasped her hands under her chin. “I can’t wait to get started!”
Dad just shook his head and went back to his plans, but whatever the burden was that he carried on his shoulders; it seemed to lighten that afternoon.
Mum began moving around the room, straightening, checking the bread rising on top of the stove, her heals hit the floor energetically with every step. The conversation seemed to have given her new hope for the future. She had told ARJ often enough when he worried, “Doing something is better than doing nothing.”
Once she had things in order, she sat back down near the end of the table where her supplies were and took the lace pillow on her lap. She opened the tin box, pulled a pin cushion from the bobbin bag, and began to stick pins in the pillow. Some of the pins were short and some were much longer, like hatpins with big ends.
“John William, will you hand me the pattern?”
JW reached for the paper and handed it to Mum. She pinned the pattern around the side of the pillow, putting several short pins around the edges. John William held the pin cushion while Mum picked out eight longer pins and put one through each of the eight dots running across the first row.
“Now will you begin handing me pairs of bobbins?”
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| Oldest lace bobbin in England found in Budleigh |
John William complied and soon all fourteen pair were hanging from the row of pins. ARJ walked to Mum’s chair. He enjoyed watching her as much as his brother did.
The boys stood and watched as Mum began shifting the bobbins around; the pairs leaped over one another in an order her fingers seemed to remember on their own. Mum pinned the string at a dot on the second row and then reached for the next pairs of bobbins, incorporating them into the act. Sometimes, she’d choose a long hat pin to hold bobbins, not in the current act, away from where she was working.
“How did you learn to make lace, Mum?” ARJ asked.
Mum’s fingers kept moving and the wooden bobbins swung and clicked against each other as she talked.
“When I was fifteen, I was sent to my uncle’s home in Budleigh, England to learn how to weave lace and work as a lace-maker.”
“Is Budleigh on the Isle of Wight?” ARJ asked, thinking about Dad’s map book.
“No. It’s on the mainland of England in Devon, along the southern coast. I could see the ocean from my room in the attic of my uncle’s home.” Mum’s hands paused as she recalled the view. “Maybe Dad will show you in the atlas when he finishes the map he’s working on now.”
ARJ looked at Dad and back at Mum. “I watched Grandma make lace when we visited her.”
“Grandma Jarman was a lace-maker in Budleigh before I was even born. Her lace is so delicate.” She paused for a minute. “She is an exceptionally skilled handworker.”
Mum gave the bobbins a gentle tug and smoothed the strings with her palm, checking for consistency.
“It’s nearly teatime.” She exclaimed as she looked toward the dimming sky through the window. “The darkness of the day really throws off my clock!”
She gathered her lace supplies and carried everything to the back room, making sure several long pins anchored the bobbins in place.
ARJ blurted. “We have enough tangled messes to deal with, don’t we Mum and Dad?”
His parents both looked at ARJ and then at each other.
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