Mattresses 2001

As I quilted alone last week I had lots of time to let my mind wander and relive some old times.  It was then that I decided what I’d write about in Country Living, but I’m writing only after interviewing a number of older people in the area.

For the most part, people above 70 years old slept on about the same kind of mattresses.  John can remember pulling crab grass in the fall and stuffing the bed ticks to make mattresses.  One man said his father went all the way to Collinsville (some 15 miles away) to get wheat straw to stuff their ticks with and this had to be done very fall.

Corn shucks were the most commonly used mattresses, or so it seems.  Several people told about going to the “shuck pen” and tearing up the softest shucks for this use.  My male cousin and I have laughed about the good times we enjoyed at another uncle’s house and us sleeping on shuck mattresses (covered with sack sheets).  Of course, whatever material was used would deteriorate over  the period of several months and new materials had to be gathered and the ticks emptied and then re-stuffed.

Feather Bed

Feathers were mentioned by many I talked to — some saying that feather beds were used on top of shuck mattresses, while others said their feather beds rested directly on the bed springs.  Before springs were  used, ropes were knotted and extended from side to side on the bed rails.  Of course, back then bed frames were wooden and holes had been bored for the rope to go through.  More than one person told about their folks keeping ducks and in the spring it was the children’s job to hold the ducks while “mama” picked the soft feathers to use in bedding.  Geese provided what we called “down” (a much softer feather).  These feathers were found around the back side of the goose and were used mostly to stuff pillows.  John’s aunt used to tell how “ma” would sit and hold that goose between her knees, with his back side up and his head down, and she picked the “down feathers” from his bottom. I imagine that was quite painful.

It was in the mid-30’s (after FDR took office) that the government came around to various communities and made cotton mattresses.  One lady told me she graduated from high school in 1936 and by then they already had cotton mattresses on their beds.  She distinctly remembered that her daddy furnished enough cotton to make four mattresses (quite a chunk taken from the income for that fall). The government furnished the ticks — and we never did settle on how they were made — nobody remembers if the lady of the house sewed up the ticks or if they came already made — but the farmer furnished the cotton.  Of course, the cotton had been to the gin and had no seeds left in it.  Some kind of blower was brought out to a central location and people in the community came in, with their cotton, and helped with the making process. They used sewing needles about 12″ long to tack the mattress at intervals – a knot or button was used at each inside tacking — I believe these tackings were called “tufts.”  Then in most cases they sewed a large ridge/roll around the edge of the mattress to finish it off.  We laughed and said this gave bed bugs a place to hde.  Bed bugs — that an article for another time!!

Cotton Mattress

A man who learned the mattress-making trade around Guntersville came to Crossville and lived with my uncle’s family and it was then that my Uncle Jim started making mattresses. Rural areas had no electricity and he would take his old truck to a home where they wanted a mattress made, jack up the back end of the truck, put a belt with a pulley around the back wheel to pull the blower. Different family members would go along to help with the mattress making.  Wherever the makers happened to be at meal  time was where they ate.  One lady told of “fixing” lunch for Uncle Jim and his son.

In later years, Uncle Jim built what we called a “mattress factory” near his home and mattress-making was his livelihood for years. The inner spring mattresses came on the scene and lots of people had their cotton mattresses “made over” into inner-spring mattresses.  Even after my uncle’s death in the late ’60’s, one of the boys made mattresses for a time.  We are holding onto an old government-made cotton mattress — I wonder just how many are left in the area.   My friend, who grew up in Pennsylvania, knew nothing about all this; however, they didn’t raise cotton in their part of the world either.  This was how it was back then living in the south with its style of country living.