Earlier in a post I talked about our wedding dress. The reason I called it ours is because it was originally bought for my mom when my parents got married. That dress sat in the back bedroom at my grandma’s house on the top shelf in the closet in a brown box forever. My grandma was the sweetest, best grandma you could ever ask for. She never said no to anything and baked all the time. Cookies, cakes and pies. By the way she made a pie everyday and if it wasn’t eaten by the end of the day she would throw it away. Her three children tried to make sure that never happened and I loved when my mom beat her two brothers there after work when it was a cherry or strawberry pie! Anyway the wedding dress was the one thing my Grandma would say no to. We could not touch the box or ever even open it to see it. I told her one day I will because I am going to wear it. SHe just said that is why I am saying no now.
When the dress came to our house I think that was when my dad built the cider closet in the garage. It went on the top shelf in its box there. My mom said no we can not open it.
Years later my sister decided she was getting married. She is only 5’2 by the way. We went all over the Quad CIties, Peoria, Chicago and Texas looking for a dress for her. She almost fell in love with one in Texas. The problem was she was so little that all the dress at the time they put on her were huge and you had to pull them in the back so she could sort of see what her actual size would look like. Dana is not a visual person. Somehow one day she was trying on my mom’s dress. It actually looked really good on her. I wanted to cry because she loved it. We had finally taken it out of the box and not my sister was going to wear it. We took it to a seamstress and the first thing my mom told her was, “YOU CAN NOT CUT ANY OF THIS DRESS OFF.” She pointed to me and said, this daughter 5’9 has always said that she will wear it someday. The seamstress said she could do it and she made the dress look just perfect on my sister! My mom and I after the wedding had to shake rice out of that dress forever. I said well, I will not have people throw rice at my wedding.
When Brian asked me to marry him I knew it was finally my turn to wear the dress. People asked me if I wanted to go shopping, but my mom knew that I wanted her dress. We went back to the same seamstress and she took out her temporary stitches and lengthened the dress again. My mom was a little shorter than me, but she had a giant hoop under the dress. My hoop was not near as big so when she took out the stitches it actually made the dress a little too long with my hoop.
My Grandma missed seeing my sister and I in the dress, but I know that she was smiling from heaven. Her saying no to us had kept the dress just perfect for our special days in the same church that our parents had gotten married in. Thank goodness Brian didn’t forget his belt for his pants like my dad did!!
I know I should be commenting about the dress, but I keep returning to the pie. She made a pie every day? Oh. My. Goodness. That’s impressive! If I make one for Thanksgiving, that feels like a win.
She not only made a pie everyday she also made cookies, bread and cakes. I should write about some of her famous baking. The small town new her well.