Picturing my maternal grandmother in my mind, I always see Bubba, my Polish grandmother, in a cotton house dress and an apron.  She always wore an apron in the house. Today, I don't think our kids even know what an apron is. The principal use of Bubba's apron was to protect the dress underneath, but along with that, it served as a pot holder for removing hot loaves of homemade bread from the oven.  She made the best bread.  When I think of walking into her kitchen, I can still smell that fresh bread right out of the oven.  Bubba’s apron was wonderful for drying our tears, wiping our skinned knees and on occasion, was even using it for cleaning out dirty ears.  From the chicken coop, her apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.  When company came, her apron were ideal hiding place for my shy cousins. And when the weather was cold, Bubba wrapped it around her arms to ward off a chill.  I remember her using those big old aprons to wipe her perspiring brow, bent over a hot stove.  And from Judza’s garden, her apron carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.  In the summer, her apron was used to carry pears from the pear tree Judza had grafted onto an apple tree and in the fall, Bubba’s apron would bring in apples that had fallen from the tree. When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how muchfurniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds. When dinner was ready, Bubba walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and Judza knew it was time to come in for dinner.  It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that "old-time apron" that served so many purposes.
     Bubba used her apron to set her hot baked pies on the window sill to cool. Her great-granddaughters now set theirs on the window sill to thaw.  They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.   I know I never caught anything from Bubba’s apron--except love.

In memory of Bubba, Louise (Ludwika Mikulec) Severyn (1895-1985).