CULLMAN – Today, feather beds and mattress toppers are considered a thing of luxury. The soft, fluffy, feather/down blend looks and feels like you are sleeping on a big billowy cloud. Cozy and warm, they are extremely hard to leave once the alarm clock goes off in the morning. Unfortunately, the feather beds of our ancestors didn’t always have that same effect.
My Great Grandma Hendrix slept on a feather bed ever since I can remember. Because we kids were never allowed to touch it, I never knew how comfortable or uncomfortable it was. I wanted to lay in that bed so bad I could taste it! I even wrote about her mysterious old bed in my book, “Jokers & Dandies:”
“Never, ever sit on Nu-Nu’s bed.” Both Momma and Grandma warned from the first time we’d ever seen it.
“How come? What’s so great about it?” I wondered.
“Because the mattress is made of feathers and is very old,” Momma said. “You kids are not allowed to touch it – ever! It’s off limits.”
“Have you ever sat on it?” I asked Momma.
“No.”
“Have you ever touched it?”
“No.”
“Not even when you were a little kid?” I asked her in disbelief.
“Not even as a little kid. Please, just don’t mess with it, okay?”
“Okay.”
I never knew why it was such a big deal. But I’d stand in the doorway for huge amounts of time and stare across the room at her bed, dreaming of lying down on it just to see what it felt like. I never tried it out though, even when I was the only person in the house. I never tried it out because I feared what would happen to me if I got caught.
Growing up a John Denver fan, naturally one of my favorite songs of his was “Grandma’s Feather Bed.” Oh the fun and good times he and his cousins would have on their grandma’s feather bed and how I wanted to experience those same good times as they did!
“But the best darn thing about Grandma's house was her great big feather bed,” he’d sing. “It was 9 feet high and 6 feet wide, soft as a downy chick. It was made from the feathers of forty 'leven geese, took a whole bolt of cloth for the tick. It'd hold eight kids, four hound dogs and a piggy we stole from the shed. We didn't get much sleep, but we had a lot of fun on Grandma's feather bed.”
Now that I am an adult with children and a grandchild of my own, I understand why I was never allowed to poke around and waller all over Grandma Hendrix’s bed. It’s just like the phrase I always heard as a child, “It’s too good for kids!” Yes, her bed was definitely too good for kids, and now I understand why.
In the 19th century, feather beds became a comfortable place to sleep for ordinary people like Grandma Hendrix’s family. Those feather mattresses or feather ticks were considered valuable possessions. People even made wills promising them to the next generation! If you weren’t lucky enough to inherit one, it took up to 50 pounds of feathers for a new bed. Farming families that had geese would save feathers from years of plucking until there was enough for a mattress.
Tick is an odd word for mattress, huh? A tick is simply a linen or cotton bag filled with either feathers, straw, wool or cotton and sewn shut. The fabric, called ticking, had to be closely woven to keep the feathers from escaping. Often times, the ticking was waxed or rubbed with soap to help keep it impenetrable.
Feather ticks were usually put on top of another firmer, non-feather mattress for support. Because they were basically just bags of feathers with no inner structure, every morning they needed shaking and re-shaping. Learning to plump and smooth the bed well was one of the arts of housekeeping back in Grandma Hendrix’s day.
I never knew the story of my grandma’s feather bed and sadly nobody is left to ask. Grandma Hendrix was born on December 25, 1893 in Carroll County, Georgia. She could have possibly inherited it from her parents after they died or received it as a wedding gift when she married Grandpa Hendrix on April 6, 1911. She was a Christmas baby, so she could have even gotten it as a special birthday present. Wherever it came from though, it was special to her but to me the old bag of feathers has remained a complete mystery.
What do you remember about your parent’s and grandparent’s feather beds?
