Leora Goff attended Mrs. Connrardy Sewing School in Exira, Iowa, in 1910, hiring out to sew for local families almost four years before she married Clabe Wilson. She made her own wedding gown. Leora’s mother, Laura Goff, likely owned a Singer treadle sewing machine. The treadle is the part at the bottom powered by rocking it back and forth by foot. It spins a flywheel which is connected to the hand wheel at the upper right by a belt.
Leora Wilson had half a dozen children before she bought her own Singer sewing machine, driving a horse and wagon to town to get it after the postman sent a note that her package was too large to bring on the rural route. She kept the treadle busy with new clothes and making repairs.
The machine traveled with them from house to house during the Great Depression, even hiding items their pet squirrel Rusty squirreled away. Did her machine travel all the way to Guthrie Center after WWII? I don’t remember it. But Grandma Leora patched regularly at the Guthrie County Hospital with her Rebekahs group. She was the only one by then who knew how to use their treadle machine.
The back of the pinafore is open, with a generous bow. It was to be worn over a dress. Little girls in those days always wore dresses. Oh, I wish I had a photo with one of us wearing a pinafore!
I started out on a treadle sewing machine, but when you’re in 4-H, any project entered in the county fair would be judged. That meant that the tension between the upper thread and lower thread had to be perfect so the stitches themselves would be even. They weren’t, and Mom had trouble adjusting the tension. That led to her first electric sewing machine, a White, sold by Sears.
We have an old sewing machine case, without the machine, just because.
