Feed Sack Clothing for Marco Pioneer Kids

Life was primitive on Marco Island for Faye Brown, born in 1942, and her family. Most of the settlers in the Marco township (now Old Marco) were living without electricity and running water at the time. And like many rural Americans, Brown’s family, the Dickersons, used feed and flour sack material to make their clothing.

Brown said she and her siblings never gave any thought about growing up wearing feed sack dresses and flour sack under garments.

"It was in the forties on an isolated island called Marco,” Faye Brown said, "we didn't call it Marco Island. Our country had just come through the Great Depression of the thirties, then WWll came along about the time that I was born. Finding a place to live and putting food on the table were two of the greatest concerns for most families at that time.”

Pioneer-era Marco Islanders weren’t the only ones wearing clothing fashioned from feed and flour sacks. The practice was commonplace in rural America. In fact, companies made their sacks with colorful patterns because they knew people were using them to make their clothing.

“On Marco, most people shared their outgrown garments with others, if they weren't already worn out or had patches all over them,” Brown said. “Every household had a pair of sewing scissors, a pack of needles and sewing thread. That was because you didn't toss a garment out because it didn't fit or had a small rip or hole. You hemmed it, patched it, or just plain made it from scratch.”

Fortunately, Brown’s mother was a fine seamstress, a talent she learned from her mother and passed along to Faye and her older sister Annette.

"My mom made most all of our clothes between 1942 and 1953,” Brown said. "My mom had learned to sew from her mom and they both were excellent seamstresses. 

When my siblings started arriving close together, my mom began sewing clothes for them. Back then, baby diapers were all cloth. There was no such a thing as disposable diapers.”

Brown said the feed sacks were beautiful and the softer flour sacks were ideal for diapers and undergarments.

"Some families had chickens for eggs and meat,” Brown said. “Their feed came in beautiful cloth sacks. When they bought flour to make bread, it also was bagged in a cloth sack. This material was a softer fabric and was mostly white. Diapers for the babies could be made from these - also undergarments for the small children. The feed sacks were larger and made pretty outer garments to wear. The sacks had labels on them that had to be soaked overnight to remove.”

Ken Walker, who grew up on Kelly Road in Naples, remembers first noticing something different about one of his shirts in junior high. Walker was born at Lee Memorial Hospital in 1953.

"Naples had no hospital at the time,” Walker said. "I have no story about flour sack clothes, although we are all aware that Mom used them for making clothes. What I do remember is coming home from my first physical education class in junior high. I remember going to Momma and asking her what that white tag was on the neckline of my shirt. I noticed it when changing in PE. Before that, all my shirts were hand-made and had no tag. She had a smile on her face when she explained about the white tag."  

"Clothing and fabric were expensive during the thirties and forties,” Brown said. "Not all of the kids wore feed sack dresses because their moms didn't sew that well. They could hem a garment or patch a pair of pants. Some just ordered their clothes from Sears and Roebuck Catalog or Alden’s. Montgomery Ward was a little more expensive.”

Brown said she was always proud of her feed sack dresses.

“Wearing feed sack dresses was just life,” Brown said, "We were always excited to get a new dress. We didn't have electricity until 1952 after the state road came into Marco Village, but mama just kept on sewing on her treadle machine. She made most all of her clothes also. The treadle machine was in the corner of the dining room and she used the round table for laying out her patterns to cut the fabric. I learned to sew by watching her. Mama did buy an electric sewing machine after we moved to Naples. Annette and I were in home economics class. Annette was a professional seamstress. I sew like I do everything else, enough to get by. We liked anything we had. We were not picky kids. I was just as proud of my dress made from feed sack material as any other dress. They had some really pretty patterns on some of the different brands. Mama also made kitchen dish towels from the flour sacks. I would love to have some of that material today to make some quilts. It was strong cotton fabric."

Recently, Brown bought a sewing machine for her home in the mountains of Georgia that is just like the one her grandmother and mother worked on.

“My treadle machine looks just like the one my grandmother passed down to my mother,” Brown said. "I also learned to sew on my grandmother's machine. When I bought my sewing machine from a flea market, I hadn't sewn on one since I was nine years old. When I sat down to sew on it, everything that I had learned as a young girl just came back to me so naturally." 

A woman who had a profound positive impact on Brown and the entire Dickerson family was Caroline Robinson. She often provided feed and flour sacks for the Dickerson family.

“Our family friend, Mrs. Caroline Robinson, was instrumental in getting the "Little Church" organized and built on the Island,” Brown said. “She was very helpful in sharing her feed and flour sacks with our mom. Mr. and Mrs. Kipp had a small farm near Arcadia, Fl., at a place called Gardner, Fl. They had chickens and cows, besides a large garden and a citrus fruit grove. They would come to Marco to visit the Robinson family and bring bunches of the empty feed sacks that Mrs. Kipp had washed up and saved. Mrs. Caroline used some of the fabric but gave lots of it to my mom to make things for her little ones. Caroline Robinson was as close to my family as family gets. My Mom stated through tears just before passing away that, ‘Miz Caroline was like a mother to me and a grandmother to my kids.'”

Brown said that between her mother’s sewing skills and the quality of the feed sacks, it is sometimes impossible to differentiate between dresses her mother sewed and store bought dresses.

"I remember the first store bought dress that I got,” Brown said. "I was in about second grade, and I was going to be in a small skit at school. Mama drove us kids to Fort Myers, a three-hour drive one way, to buy me a dress for the skit. We walked out onto the stage with a baby doll and each of us took turns reciting a memory verse. My memory verse went something like this: 'My Dollie's name is Faye, she's pretty as can be.' I can't remember the rest, but I remember some teens lined up against the back wall for a lack of somewhere to sit, and they began laughing. I never did know what they were laughing at unless it was the way I talked, so deep and slow." 

Now entering her 80s, Brown reflects back on her life on Marco in the 1940s and 1950s with fondness.

“It was just our way of living,” Brown said, "clean and simple. I am still discovering how blessed we were to have such wonderful parents. My mom took pride in everything she did. She was not lazy. She was a hard worker. My mom and dad both were hard workers."