Flour Sacks: a Message for Today
In a win-win, the colorful fabric bags made life better during dark times
Ninety-year-old George Reier is ready. Always. His car is gassed up, his frig full, and his garden weeds pulled. As a farm boy in Cranberry Prairie, Ohio, he learned to take care of things. Later, in the Marines, George was in charge of supplies. I was not surprised this week that when I mentioned flour sacks to George, he ferreted out one from the bottom of his cedar chest in five minutes flat. Pristine and clean as the day it was made, the red, white, and blue ribbon pattern reflect Depression aesthetics. The bright cotton bag also reflects Depression ingenuity and a partnership between industry and a suffering people.
My friend Gina Blake laughs over the phone, her throaty voice redolent of her southern roots. I’ve called to learn more about her grandmother’s quilts. Gina moved back to northern Alabama, the same area where she grew up. A few years ago she showed me glorious quilts her grandmother Lorene Minor Brannon sewed from flour sacks. For batting, Lorene stuffed them with cotton grown on her farm. The Tennessee Valley Authority was founded not too far away. Nearby, the Appalachian Mountains begin their rise and sweep. Both give the area solid credentials as, in the words of Gina’s mother Glenda, “a hotbed of poverty.”
