When I showed the finished gown to my mother, she looked at me with such an amazingly strange expression that I knew I was missing something important.

 “Why don’t you want to use the family gown”?

 “What family gown?” I asked totally lost.

Our first child arrived with great preparations and even more fanfare as it had become doubtful as to whether the two of us would ever become a threesome.  We were not a moneyed couple; my husband was working on his PhD and I was a secretary.  Much of my shopping was done in thrift shops.  One day I discovered the grandest, oldest and yellowiest woman’s dress made completely of maybe 2” layers of eyelet  “ribbon.”  Ah, I said to myself, this shall be our child’s baptismal gown.

I spent months and months carefully removing the rows of eyelet after having whitened the dress by wetting it with water and letting it dry in the sun.  Finally I was ready to reassemble the rows into the baby’s gown.  What an heirloom I was creating, I thought, quite proud of myself.

What I didn’t understand was how small babies were.  More about that later.

When I showed the finished gown to my mother, she looked at me with such an amazingly strange expression that I knew I was missing something important.

“Why don’t you want to use the family gown”?

“What family gown?” I asked totally lost.

My mom responded, “The one your great grandmother was baptized in; the one your grandmother and her siblings were baptized in; the one my siblings and I were baptized in; the one you and your siblings were baptized in; the one your nephews were baptized in.”

I had indeed missed an important family fact.

“Of course, I want to use the same gown; I just have no recollection of it.  May I please see it?  Please, please?”

I was quite speechless as she carefully lifted a bundle of carefully wrapped tissue paper out of a box.  That initial bundle held two large  bundles and one small bundle.  First she unwrapped the small one; and what a beautiful bib it was.  “This bib matches the dress, you know.”  Of course I didn’t know; I still had no memory of the dress.

Then she reached for one of the large bundles and carefully unrolled it, revealing a long and lovely dress, I thought and commented to that effect.  “No, Karen,” I distinctly remember her saying, “this is the slip to the gown.”  Wow, I thought to myself.

And, at last, the gown itself was slowly and carefully unwrapped.  Tears rolled down my cheeks – perhaps they were tears from the beauty of the dress or from my unspeakable embarrassment at having forgotten such an incredible heirloom that  was part of My Family.

In any event, here are some photos --

And, oh yes, our dogter modeling the cap that someone at somepoint crocheted!  The gown was made in Germany in

the early 1860's.

And back to the eyelet dress I made. It was sized to fit an average 18-month-old.  Here is our second son in it:

And now you know the rest of the story!