Sunday, May 22, 2022

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 20: Textile

It's Week 20 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. The prompt for this week is ‘Textile'. This is an easy one for me. I immediately thought of a dishtowel I have in my collection, handed down to me from my grandmother.
This dishtowel was hand-woven by her mother, Mara Miller Janco. Mara died at a young age, when my grandmother was only 11 years old. It is the only thing I have from that great-grandmother. If there were photos of her, they have been long lost.

I do not know if Mara made this towel after she came to the United States in 1911, or if she made it while she was still in Europe. She'd been in the U.S. less than 2 years when she died. It seems likely she made it while still in Europe and brought it along to her new home.

I also do not know what my grandmother meant by 'hand-woven'. Did Mara use a loom to weave the cloth? Or did she literally do the entire thing by hand. I don't know enough about weaving to speculate, but it seems likely to me that she used a loom. Either way, I am lucky to have this artifact and grateful to my Grandmother for choosing me to keep this legacy.

5 comments:

  1. What a fantastic heirloom. So precious. I have been considering whether or not to add weaving to my hobbies. There is a local craft shop that offers classes. It's very tempting particularly when you see great work like this :)

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    1. I hope you try the class. Who knows....maybe someday your great-granddaughter will be blogging about a dish towel you wove!

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  2. This is a great treasure! I am a weaver so I can tell by the photograph that this was done on a loom. Thanks for the great story.

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    1. Thank you! I suspected she used a loom, only because it seems to me it would be incredibly difficult to do this without one. It's good to have that feeling verified by someone who actually knows something about weaving!

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  3. How nice that this heirloom has been preserved, it's obviously been well cared for. My mother used to weave and the towels she made were particularly absorbent and I used them regularly. Now I think I will put one aside and save for the next generation to have. Thanks for sharing.

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