Square Pillows

  Mary Stadnyk said that when she was growing up:

                Pillows were 36 inches square with red and black cross-stitch embroidery on the front.  

    

                A special cloth called feather ticking was stuffed with goose and duck feathers.  (The feathers were not washed.)  Even wing feathers were used but they would be stripped.

                Work bees were held at Gedo’s house for stripping feathers, and a dance followed.  The house had bare, unpainted floors although some people did paint their floors.  

                Everyone sat on benches and told jokes and sang.  Everybody was covered in feathers and there were feathers in all the corners of the room.  The boys wore ordinary clothes, but the girls dressed up in pretty dresses.  Mom remembered one girl in a wine and black taffeta dress with a fringed sash.

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When Mary's brother Wes got married to Marion, Baba gave him a big pillow because he couldn’t sleep on a small one.