The Flour Sack Underwear Poem

The milling industry was an early business on the frontier, almost every town had a mill. Often they were water-powered wheels that drove a revolving stone to grind grain into flour. The mills were sometimes called "grist mills" though I'm not sure the adjective adds much to the thought. Grist is defined as the grain that has been cleaned and ready to be ground and in practice is kind of used as a synonym for "grind."

The ground product was usually flour when it came from wheat and similar grains. Coarsely ground corn becomes grits; finely ground corn becomes corn meal, etc.

Flour made it to the kitchen either via purchase, likely from the mill in sacks of varying size. Farmers could sell their grain at the mill or pay a fee to have the miller grind the farmer's grain into flour that was collected in large sacks, probably good for 50 pounds - a pretty large sack made from a sturdy cloth that was readily available to be recycled into other uses by the industrious household.

A bonus feature of the flour sack was that at least one side of the sack made for advertising or decoration which would later enhance the recycled product.

One recycled flour sack product was good for a poem found here in the last half of a newspaper item from sometime in the local past - there is a reference to the "Angus-Edgar" area.

Flour Sack Underwear poem likely from one of the Sutton newspapers, way-back-when.

Our thanks to Lucyle Sterkel who uncovered this gem.