Women's History Month: Working girl

March is Women's History Month and as such GeneaBloggers' prompt today is: Working girl: Did your mother or grandmother work outside the home? What did she do? Describe her occupation.

All the women in my family - both sides - have worked at some point outside the home. My mom was an accountant with Penn Dairy. A year or two after I was born, she quit to stay home. Daddy worked at the Mill so a second income back then was not as vital as it is now. Mom was always doing something and loved to knit, do ceramics, and make various crafts out of a variety of materials. When I was in seventh or eighth grade (I was still going to school in Coatesville not yet Octorara but I forget when exactly), she finally started her own business. She called it "Stitched With Love."

Mom's business was quite successful and soon took over the kitchen, the dining room and finally when a large two car garage was added onto the house, it took that over too. She never did like crowds and dealing with people though so she sold her wares wholesale. Her crafts changed over time to go with whatever the tourists and the want to be artsy folk wanted to buy that season.

She enlisted the family as well. My Aunt Anne would come up almost everyday and paint for her. When she started using wood as a medium, Daddy spent his evenings (after a full shift at the mill) in the garage sawing out watermelons, turkeys, cows and anything else that was "in" at the moment.

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