The Origins....

My Inner Seamstress begins a couple generations back....

Two generations ago begins here.

This is my house.  Those of you who know me well are thinking at this point, "Uh, no that doesn't look anything like 'your' house..."  And you're right.  It's not the house that I am currently living in, but it will be my house eventually.

This is the house that my grandparents built in 1925.  It looks only vaguely like this now.  Fast forward to now and you will not see a porch - it was closed in later in the early 50's and is the other 1/2 of our living room now. You also do not see here any sidewalk, lattice arbor, plants, trees, or ... well, the rest of the house.

This photo was taken not too long after they moved in and possibly before my mom was born.  See the three windows on the left?  That's my mom's bedroom.  The bedroom where she was born and was raised as the only girl in a family of 6 children.  This room was my reading and lounging room and sometimes my refuge.  I spent summers here as a really young girl laying across the bed reading one of the hundreds of books on the built in library shelves with the cross breeze blowing across the room and the doves cooing outside the window.  One of the books I remember reading and rereading was a book by Ann Jensen called The Time of Rosie.  From the cover: "Rosie was a pig with a personality and she belonged to 10-year-old Anita, who lived on a ranch in the time of Pancho Villa's swooping raids across West Texas. Anita had decided that Rosie should grow up to be a proper young lady, but pigs WILL be pigs, and Anita was told that Rosie was a better candidate for pork than pet. Despite her unladylike antics, Rosie worked her...  more » way into the hearts of the entire family. For them it was a time of terror as the bandits came closer and closer, but it was a wonderful time, too, for it was THE TIME OF ROSIE."
It was sort of the west Texas version of Charlotte's web for a little city girl visiting the west.
But, I digress. 
This home was the home of Dorothy Alice Hoss Buttery.  A pioneer not only in spirit, but through out her lifetime. She grew up in Springfield, IL and Fairfax, OK.  She was in Fairfax when she met my grandfather, Albert James Buttery from the little town of Llano, TX.  He'd recently graduated from pharmacy school in Galveston and he was in Oklahoma for a job.  They married, moved a few times and ended up in San Angelo, TX.  The Grierson Street home was their 3rd in San Angelo.  The previous two, on Allen St. and S David, are still occupied today.

Dorothy Alice Hoss Buttery

This is a portrait taken by a photography studio in early San Angelo.  My guess? She made the dress.  She could make anything.  She made nearly all of her children's clothes from infancy to adulthood. Then made many outfits for her grandchildren.  She sewed for others too and I imagine she stayed very busy with 6 children and all of her domestic duties.

The photo above is of her with one of her children.  It is either my mother or the youngest, her brother, Robert. Notice the crocheted detail down her arm of her dress or jacket.  All hand done by her I imagine.

As I mentioned in my 1st post she was a master of all textile crafts. 

I can't leave out my paternal grandmother though.  My dad's mother, Dagney, could also sew.  I have a couple pieces she made me as a toddler, but I do not know as much about her sewing abilities as I do my maternal grandmother's passion for sewing and creating.

To come:

photos of her sewing passion....

photos of some of the beautiful handwork in the batiste baby clothes...