Mrs. Rosalie

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It was my parents’ idea to drop me off for the day at Mrs. Rosalie’s duplex in town. I wanted to learn how to sew a pair of palazzo pants, and Mrs. Rosalie had worked as a seamstress most of her life. Instead of plopping me in front of a YouTube video, my dad dropped me off at this kind, Christian widow’s home. (Someday, when I have children that age, I’m going to remember that.) I’d taken a few sewing classes before—one at JoAnn’s and another at a storefront downtown. I don’t remember either of them half as well as I remember that day at Rosalie’s.

She took me downstairs to her basement, where there was a large, square table with a measuring grid. Her equipment neatly lined the walls. She had a serger (a serger!). She’d tied spent spools of thread to the ends of the pull-strings for her fluorescent lights. She was gentle, as she taught me to lay out the pieces, cut, stitch, gather, and hem, and she was corrective—like a flight instructor keeping me on course. To her, this was serious work.

We took one break that day, that I can remember, to eat lunch in her dark, little kitchen. I remember she held my hand and prayed for people all over the world who might be hungry and thanked the Lord for the food we were privileged to have, then we ate quietly. 

A few weeks ago, my dad sent me Mrs. Rosalie’s obituary. Born in 1926, she’d lived to see the dawn of another century. Nearly one-hundred years of life, and her obituary filled in the gaps of the story I never knew, but that fit well into the scenes from my day with her.*

She’d been born on a family farm in Concord Hill, Missouri, and if you know the area surrounding the river, then you know exactly where that hill is. The highway comes upon it suddenly, then sort of ducks around it politely. At the crest is a row of brick buildings, and one of them is St. Ignatius Parish with the steeple. A cemetery sleeps on the hillside. 

Maybe it was farm life, maybe it was working as a nurse’s aid from the age of 12, but as her family wrote of her, This woman loved to work. She sewed soldier’s boots during the World War. She worked as a live-in nanny, a crop and dairy farmer, a postal worker, a caterer, and a seamstress until she was 96. During her busy season, she’d iron up to 75 shirts in a week. 

I’ll think about that next time I iron Jared’s dress shirt for Sunday church. I keep the memory of the day at Rosalie’s tucked like the fabric in my sewing basket, pulling it out occasionally when I sit down to a project to lay out the pieces, cut, stitch, gather, and hem. I want to treat this the way Rosalie did, as serious work. 

This woman seemed to understand something the Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: that, in the life of a Christian, the word of the gospel will always lead to a work.

“For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God” (1 Thessalonians 2:9).

It’s a work that requires our minds and mouths, as well as our fingers and hands. It takes many forms, wears many hats. It may carry the mail or mend a boot. It may even teach a younger woman to sew a pair of pants and learn the ropes of a skill she’ll use the rest of her life. 

It was to the Thessalonians that Paul also wrote: “Imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you” (2 Thess. 3:7). And so I’ll find myself ironing and hemming and seeking to imitate this quiet, gentle Christian woman—this woman who loved to work.

“But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands…”

~ 1 Thess. 4:11

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*https://www.miller.wolfefuneralhomes.net/notices/Rosalie-Voss