The Val Marie Elevator: A Living Heritage Project

MO THER’ S APRON AR CHI V E S Madonna Hamel The following vignettes are excerpts from a one-woman play, “Mother’s Apron.” Written

by Val Marie resident Madonna Hamel, the work is inspired by the women of Val Marie and surrounds. It is a response to rancher Jack Gunter’s challenge to tell the stories of the “mothers of the land, for without them these men would not have been worth a damn!”

Madonna continues to mine the territory for stories, using archives, letters, self-published stories, and the anecdotes of locals who are generous with their recollections. Versions of the play have been performed in Val Marie, Regina, Maple Creek and Swift Current.

These pieces are particularly relevant for this collection because aprons were often sewn from the material of flour sacks – also known as “chicken linen,” since chicken feed was also packaged in cotton and/or linen sacks. Aprons, underwear, tea towels, pillowcases, handkerchiefs were all made up from salvaged flour bags and represented the thrift and skill of women’s domestic labour. Flour companies would release floral patterns knowing that women used the material for sewing. Following WWII flour was packaged in paper rather than fabric, but memories, and sometimes materials themselves, survive from this practice.