More Letters From Paradise
My brother-in-law Ted, recently gave me a very small button-size compass. This led to a conversation about buttons. We spoke about how thrifty housewives saved odd buttons in a button box. Buttons cut from old clothes were saved, and the clothes were sold to the rag man. Rags were pounded into a pulp, and became paper. If you have ever wondered why old newspapers and modern books, turn brown and brittle; it's because they are made from wood pulp. Cotton paper lasts for centuries.
Ted and I remembered how some women feeling artsy crafts, would cover a jug with clay, push buttons into the clay. Having covered the jug with buttons, it was put into an oven to bake the clay. Presto! an art object.You can still find these in antique shops. Buttons were cut-steel, jet, ivory, hand-painted, litho transfers. Buttons showing famous people or events. You get the idea. My mother caused me to collect uniform buttons. I had uniform buttons from many wars, both European and American. Many, many Civil War buttons.
My mother was a button collector. And, there are many button collectors all over the country. She was given a special button by her brother who had flown with the R.A.F. during the war. It was a uniform button which when you turned the back of it, a small compass was seen. These were to aid downed pilots, to make their escape from the Germans. There were also silk scarves with maps printed on them.
When my mother died, her button box with that special button just vanished! I wonder if the new owner of the buttons, realizes the secret of that one uniform button.
Aloha
Grant
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