6lbs bag of extra fancy patent flour with a printed figure of a cloth doll wearing a purple dress. USA 1937 (TRC 2017.3232).Sometime ago we published a poem about the use of feedsacks for making clothes, including underwear in 1930s America. The writer obviously had some very vivid and personal recollections. We described the poem without the name of the author, which until a few days ago remained unknown.

Feedsacks were widely used in the USA and beyond to make garments, and animal feed producers often deliberately printed clothes' patterns on their feedsacks for women to make garments. The TRC dedicated a special online exhibition to this phenomenon: For a few sacks more, which also includes the poem (see below).

What a pleasant surprise, when we recently received an email from Rol Morris in Canada, identifying the author of the poem as his great aunt, Ada Marie Shrope, who lived in southern Kansas in the dustbowl days. He told us the following:

"Not much is known about Ada Marie. She was born in Fairview Township, Cowley County, Kansas the first of October 1899. Her parents were James Washington Shrope (1874-1957) and Ora Estelle Onstatt (1877-1951) and she was the youngest of three children. Ada married Roy Fox, a Collector for the McAllister Transfer Company, in Wichita in 1918. They raised a daughter, Ada Mae Fox (1919-1966).

Woman's dress made from feedsack material, USA, 1930s-1940s (TRC 2017.3003).

Ada Marie was a typical Midwestern woman of her time, living her whole life with her parents, a brother, husband and daughter on a farm in sparse Cowley County. Her poem shows that she was perceptive and expressive in describing the hardships of rural America during the dust storm-depression days, yet disclosed a light hearted acceptance and wholesome understanding of life’s harsh realities in these unforgiving circumstances.

Ada Marie Shrope passed on the 21st of December 1988, age 89, in Arkansas City, Kansas. Her poem is a family treasure of which we can all be proud that one of our relatives penned such a colorful and vibrant tribute to “life in the good ‘ol days.” During the last dozen years of researching my family, no photo of Ada has surfaced."

A poem about feedsack underwear, by Ada Marie Shrope, 1899-1988: