During World War I, when flour mills realized poor women were making clothing from their sacks, they began using patterned and floral sacks and created labels that would wash off.
  1. When I was a kid, we called it material.
  2. It was the stuff from which we made our clothing.
  3. Back in the ‘50s (and before), the companies that made feed and flour packaged them in cloth (material) sacks.
  4. When we were little kids and didn’t require very much cloth to make a romper, my mom made our sun suits out of those flour sacks.
  5. We wore those little rompers all summer while we poked around in the mud under the bridge capturing tadpoles; when we climbed trees peering in bird’s nests; when we turned over the empty tank and rescued a nest of baby mice.
  6. I learned to sew with those free pieces of material.