Speaker: Well my mother would take and cut that down the middle. ... And those would be hemmed for dish towels. We girls, my sister and I learned first the running stitch on making tea towels. Then we got- Interviewer: Is a tea towel the same as a dish towel? Speaker: Yes. ... Yes. A dish towel. ... And- and then we got to hemming. We used to get fine salt in little sacks and my mother would bleach the lettering out of those and we hem- hem- we learned to hem them ...

Interviewer: What was in there? Speaker 2: Suet and flour and- ... It was just a heavy dough. Interviewer: Ew. Speaker: You wouldn't believe it. You wrap that in a tea towel eh? And you tied the top of it and you put it on a dish and then you put- Speaker 2: And steam it. Speaker: Put it down inside of a pot eh of boiling water.

Interviewer: What other kind of things did you sell? Like, did you sell clothing in the store? Speaker: Yes, men's clothing. ... And boots. And, ah, t-- dish towels and dish- tea towels and some pillow cases and just, ah, knick-knacks. At that era- ... I couldn't keep knick-knacks in the store.

Speaker: ... the surprise visits from the health inspectors were always interesting, you-know? ... And um, you-know, a-- b-- tea towels, I remember they- you-know, the tea towel h-- was moved because it was in the wrong spot or-something inside- Interviewer: Wow (laughs), oh like to pass to. Speaker: What does that have to- no we- we never once failed. Interviewer: No no no I mean like that particular- the tea towel place test- Speaker: Well I- I-think it was a matter of it may have been a finger towel- ... And- and was maybe where- somewhere over where they did toast or-something. I don't even remember. I just remember that towel being scooped out of there.

And, ah, they pushed the desks back, and they had a dance and the ladies all brought lunch and they had a- like a community shower for them. Which was, ah- if it was a girl- ... Then they would have a regular shower, where, well all the women brought tea-towels or-anything, like, along the line that they were going to need to set-up house- ... And if it was a guy, somebody would go around and take-up a collection and ah, they'd buy them something.

... they had nothing to do so they were embroidering on everything, like eh? Tea-towels and any white blouses you had, they'd put something on it, eh? To- there'd s-- be something on it, like eh?