Recently, I lost someone very special in my life, and an inspiration to my sewing. My aunt is my shining example of how to live a great life. Our birthdays are just 4 days apart and we shared our celebrations for many, many years.
Later this week would have been her 103rd birthday. She didn’t make it to 100 like she’d planned, but she lived a great life. Those were the words of the social worker who talked to her for an hour and a half on the last full day of her life.
Motivation to Start Your Own Business
My aunt owned a maternity shop for many years. She was a brilliant seamstress and a major influence to my own clothing design and sewing. She sewed for herself, our family, and later for her business.
Many of us are dreaming of starting our own business today. I hope my aunt’s story will inspire you.
Sometimes you don’t need to know your destination. If you have a great mindset, you just end up in the perfect place. Eventually. My aunt was a fantastic example of that. When she need a job, one just seemed to fall into her lap, my mother always said. For her, life never seemed to be a struggle.
Right after graduating high school in the 1940’s, she got a job her first job working for a furrier. She sewed linings into fur coats and made ladies gloves.
Later, both she and my mother worked for a high end dress shop where the Nordstrom brothers had the shoe concession, before they every owned a department store of their own.
After marrying my uncle, they moved to his hometown in Southern California where they bought a small cottage several blocks from the beach. A few years later, they built an apartment over a garage together, and rented out the house, so that they could enjoy the view of the ocean.
But even though my grandparents visited for a couple of weeks every year, she missed her family.
The Start of Mother to Be Fashions
In the early 1960’s after returning to the Pacific Northwest, she went into business with a partner she had previously worked with in retail many years earlier, and together they owned a small maternity boutique.
She made the wise decision that they should offer clothing in smaller sizes like 2, 4, and 6, because she realized smaller women got pregnant too. At the time, the department stores only offered larger sizes in maternity clothing.
Besides selling ready to wear, in their early days, they also had clients who came in with a magazine photo of a garment they wanted created.
She copied the design by altering and combining commercial patterns. One of her proudest moments was when she was asked to create the inauguration dress for the wife one of the Washington State’s governors.
When I was a little girl, she sewed countless dresses for me. Some of them had matching outfits for my doll.
I also had Crissy and Velvet dolls. They were the growing hair dolls popular in the 70’s. As soon as I got my first Crissy doll, my aunt went to work and sewed many, many outfits for her.
When I grew older and wanted to get rid of all my dolls, my mom wouldn’t let me get rid of Crissy and Velvet, and all the clothing my Aunt Winnie had made. I’m now so grateful that she made me save them!
And I still have them! Maybe someday I’ll have a granddaughter.
Daily Practices to Live a Great Life
Most of us will never be famous, nor would we want to. But we can be important to those close to us, to our family and friends, and we will always be remembered. We can have a great life, just like my aunt did.
These are the lessons I learned from my aunt:
- Be generous with you time and your talent.
- Live on less than you make and you will have a long and secure retirement
- Keep you mind active by traveling to new places, and never stop learning
- Don’t fall victim to negative thinking
And this is the lesson that I wish my aunt could have taught me: Don’t be judgmental of people, but to just love them as they are. I learned that lesson better from my Uncle Ralph, her husband of over 50 years.
We all Want to Live a Great Life
Sometimes we get so caught up in our daily routine and stresses that we forget the thing that is truly most important. Having a loving relationship with those close to us, such as our family, and our closest friends. Also, we forget to live with grace and forgiveness.
My aunt loved fashion design, and although she never became a famous designer, she knew it was better to lift others around her up rather than stepping on them to get to the top herself.
Even though she was partner in a women owned business started in the 1960’s, she never considered herself a feminist.
In fact, I think she hated the word.
She came from that generation of women who believed in looking feminine, and taking care of their appearance. Even if she had nothing better planned for her day than working the crossword puzzle, having tea with her niece, or preparing a delicious dinner for her husband, she always looked lovely. She gracefully balanced work and home life.
When her husband retired and wanted to travel, she sold her business, at what turned out to be exactly the right time.
For over 20 years they traveled up and down the West Coast in their motor home, spending winters in San Diego. In their 80’s they took up golf together when my uncle’s doctor told him it would be good for his heart.
I miss my aunt and uncle both, and I hope where ever they are now, they are having a great life together. The hardest thing of growing older is losing those we have known our entire lives, and can never be replaced.
