Grandma’s Tablecloth
So when my aunts cleaned out my Grandmother’s house in Michigan several years ago, this is one of the items that was sent to Missouri. Mom, my daughter Kara, and me sat down and divided everything up. We enjoyed looking through all the stuff. We had no memories attached to this stuff. This grandmother was my mother’s birth mother and we didn’t come to know her until many years later. It offered a glimpse into a past we didn’t know. There were several tableclothes and this is one I saw and took. I put it away for several years and when we moved in 2008, I ran across it again. I saw an opportunity to use it on the picnic table when we go camping.
That summer several people remarked how beautiful the tablecloth was and they didn’t seem too sure I should be using it. Now I have never been a tablecloth loving queen and I do get annoyed when I put it on the picnic table and less than 12 hours later it is so dirty it needs to come off to be washed. As you can tell in the picture it has been used and stained alot!
Such pretty detail!
I was recently thinking about my husband’s mother and how much we miss her. I think about family reunions that she and her sisters would always arrive first to get everything ready. They would lay tableclothes of many colors out on the picnic tables. Since she is gone who is going to do that? Will my generation get there before everyone else and lay out those tableclothes?
I have a new of eyes when it comes to the many colors of this old tablecloth and to the many shades of stains that have appeared. The colors of this tablecloth are valued not for it’s age or beauty but for the old and new memories that are made sitting around that picnic table!
So it is a nice warm spring day and yes I am packing that old tablecloth so it can be put out for a family meal, a game of cards, or a nice conversation with friends. Yes it will get dirty and it will be removed and washed and then used again!
Tin Can Weekend 