A Small Detail I Love
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - A Small Detail I Love
Pillowcases with crochet trim by Emma (Kater) Nisleit
Tiny Stitches
Some family treasures are valuable because of what they're made of. Others are valuable simply because of who made them.
These pillowcases definitely fall into that second category.
They were made by my great-grandmother, Adelina Emma Aoba Kater Nisleit, sometime in the 1940s. They're just ordinary white cotton pillowcases, but along the edges Emma crocheted these beautiful little flowers in pink, green and white. The stitches are so incredibly tiny that every time I look at them, I wonder how in the world she did it!
And honestly, those tiny stitches may be my favorite part.
Emma was born in 1890 near Vilkaviškis, in what is now Lithuania, and came to the United States as a young child. She grew up in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where she married Adolph Nisleit in 1908. They had five children, including my grandfather, Gerhardt.
Olga and Emma Kater
I don't know why Emma made these particular pillowcases or who she originally made them for. I don't even know how much they were actually used before someone decided they were worth putting away.
I'm just very glad they did.
As a genealogist, I spend a lot of time looking for records. Records can tell me when Emma was born, where she lived, whom she married and the names of her children. They can tell me when and where she died.
But they can't tell me that she could do this.
They can't tell me what colors of thread she liked or where she sat while she crocheted. I don't know whether she worked on these in the evening after everything else was done or how many hours it took her to finish them.
And they definitely can't explain how she managed to make those stitches so ridiculously small and even!
That's what I love about having something an ancestor actually made. Emma held these pillowcases in her hands. She chose the thread and made every one of those tiny stitches herself.
More than eighty years later, I can hold them in mine.
They're really nothing fancy—just white cotton, colored thread and hundreds of tiny little stitches.
But to me, they're priceless.