the mattress factory

The year was 1929.  Manning  Atwood passed away in June and Mama and the family tried to keep the mattress factory going.

Maggie (Mama) Atwood sewed the ticks for all the mattresses on her treadle machine.  Then the ticks were stuffed with cotton by a machine of some kind.  Last the edges were hand rolled with a mattress needle and tufted with hanks of cotton spaced so the fill would not shift.

More about Maggie Atwood

 Here are more photos relating to Maggie's life. She washed clothes in the back yard in a "wash house" and she made quilts with her friends. I remember big hooks in her parlor ceiling where she hung the quilting frame on quilting days. Her favorite quilt pattern was the "double wedding ring."

Mama in a dress she made herself about 1928

On the west side of her house about 1958.  She was thin but the wash tub hanging behind her left arm makes it look strange.

Mama and her brother "Uncle Will."  she had eleven brothers and sisters.