MY GRANDMOTHER WALLACE used to stay with us periodically after she no longer had her own home. She would sit in a rocking chair in the living room and darn socks or do any other patching and sewing of clothes as needed. When she was not doing that, she would Tat.
She taught me how to Tat also. I have long since forgotten how it’s done, but any time I see a tatting bobbin in an antique store or museum it brings back memories of her and my tatting experience.
During my early childhood days it was the custom every spring to go through a process called "Spring House Cleaning". This was an exercise of removing furniture, curtains, rugs, etc. from their usual locations, cleaning them thoroughly and replacing them.
Rugs were hung over the clothesline and cleaned using a "Rug Beater" to remove the dust and dirt from them. The "Rug Beater" was a flat wire structure (similar to a tennis racket without the frame) with a handle attached so it could be used to flail the rugs.
Of course being allowed to do some of the "flailing" was exciting at that age. In later years when I was assigned the task it soon lost the excitement and became work.
Once when "Spring House Cleaning" was in progress I was in the parlor playing while my mother was in the midst of the cleaning process. I had a cane that was probably three feet long. It was one that you get at a fair for a prize (a knob on one end and a metal tip on the other).
A typical light fixture in homes at that time consisted of a lamp cord dropping down from a ceramic ceiling connector to a light bulb socket. This was the arrangement in our parlor.
So my natural child instincts took over and I poked the end of the cane in the open light socket.
There was popping and snapping and sparks in every direction.
My Mother came rushing to see what happened and I was given a lecture concerning that action which I never forgot. If I remember correctly, she related the incident to my father when he came home and there was some further discussion between him and myself concerning any future conduct relative to probing open light sockets.
