A Time Study
As I was a W-2 Form worker for 45 plus years the need for time studies was always a necessary evil. In a perfect world we were to work smarter, not harder. Time was of the essence.
I feel pretty cockie as this is the second full week of no longer needing to wear a sling on my recovery left arm. There has been a project in my sewing room that has been itching me for weeks. I waited until I knew where Dennis was and how long it would take him to stay out of the house and then I made my move. I headed down into my sewing and craft basement. A certain project was beyond the hand sewing and needed my trusty 1968 Sears sewing machine. I was at a point in recovery that it mattered how long something took to get it done with the hand stitching. I was ready for some mechanical speed. It had been seven weeks that I been down among the thread and fuzz and I just sat for a moment and took it all in. The project of the day was that I needed sixteen button holes to be made to kick this project toward the finish line.
My Grandmother – Laura Wendlandt
I have never made a button hole using the attachment on my sewing machine without thinking of my paternal grandmother Laura Wendlandt.
During my senior high school year grandma came and stayed with with us for a few days and helped out after my Mom was recovering from surgery. Prior to that surgery Mom had made me a new pair of slacks and a blouse that I was going to wear going to the state basketball tournaments in the metro. This was huge as I had never been and the day long bus trip was a new adventure for this Boon Lake Township gal. The missing element for me to wear the new outfit were the buttonholes. I can still see as clear as yesterday Grandma Laura sitting next to the north kitchen windows making all the buttonholes by hand. She kept an eye on the oven where she had baked goods going, as well as the top of the stove that had the beginnings of supper for six of us that would be putting our feet under the round oak pedestal table. Grandma was short in stature but a little dynamo when it came to organizing a household. She had had a lot of practice with their eight kids plus her mother-in-law, Christine, who lived with them and in years to come when the eight were away from home the youngest son Jerald and his wife lived at the homestead.
My sixteen buttonholes today were completed in less than a half hour and Grandma Laura would have worked on the seven of them on my new blouse for the better part of an afternoon. Time studies will be going forever as we think we need to get everything done in record time but memories of the labors of love of yester-years are priceless.