For more than 26 years, including sixteen in their present
location, Mrs. H. C. Griggs and Mrs. Nola Blankenship
have worked as partners in a profession once popular,
now rapidly fading: private dressmaking.
Stitching and pedaling unestimated scores of cloth miles,
nodding and chatting over machines nearly as old as they
are, the pair has sought no fame in the fashion world.
They simply like to sew together and match gossip with guests
but now they are forecasting the eventual demise
of their art.
"Private dressmaking can't fight mass production of clothes
forever," they say. "The best future we can see lies with the
diminishing few who will still seek individuality in their
clothing and in those who can't do their own alterations.
"We want to keep in the business as long as our health is good,"
they add jokingly, "but remember we're not 16 any more."
Having literally kept hundreds of patrons in stitches for so
many years, the companionable experts have witnessed a
pretty wide panorama of fashion life.
Reviewing the seasonal cycles of style, they agree "the prettiest
is right now while hems are not too high," They think Jackie
Kennedy is the nation's fashion leader "although her skirts
are awfully short." They are convinced too few Roanokers
dress appropriately for shopping trips or other excursions
to the heart of the city. They are undredressed, they claim.
In fact, the seamstresses are in accord on nearly everything
but politics and there the disagreement is only mild. They
attend the same church, have the same taste in clothes
and
the same cheerful outlook on the world.
Mrs.Griggs, expansive and auburn-haired, has a whimsical
humor: "We call this the Modiste Shop but when people see
it, I imagine they change their minds."
Mrs. Blankenship, slight and dark-haired, is matter-of-fact:
"We put in thousands of stitches before we make a dollar."
Each was initiated to the needle and thread on doll clothes,
moving later to sewing for themselves. Mrs. Griggs' first
professional effort in her native Bedford
........
.........
........
she has a daughter and grand-daughter in California.
Mrs. Blankenship's first real creation was a pleated skirt
and middy blouse ensemble to wear to school in Pocahontas
where she was reared. She is a widow with a grand-daughter
married to a medical student in Richmond.
She prefers pure alteration work; her cohort would rather
put together a dressmaker suit than stick to repairs. And
so the teamwork has continued since they joined forces
"way before the war" as costumers for the late Frederica
Swann's dance studio.
At first they did their assignments at home, then decided
the work was too lonely, so they set up shop in a tiny room
at the studio. In 1934 they established their own quarters
on Jefferson Street, moving after 1940 to their present
locale, 11-A W. Church Avenue.
Their second floor workshop is a cheerful jumble of clothes
and scraps of material backed by the faded remains of an
artist's studio and framed by the roofs and gutters of
buildings on Kirk Avenue.
It does, indeed, resemble a Paris attic, but "we like it
here because we're not out to do a big business."
Yet their business is big for they serve several shops in
addition to several hundred customers who don't mind the
26 steps from the street to their picturesque quarters.
They have sewed for the near-great and the near-small;
from
Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks to stitching chevrons and
other
insignia on GI uniforms free of charge during
WWII. "That
was our contribution to the war effort
and our side won!"
Strangers drop in almost daily with a loose button, split
sleeve or ragged hem. Only recently a newcomer arrived
with two shirts sent by his fiancee in Germany. They were
too large even for his robust frame but now they're
correctly tailored and ready for his return trip and
wedding in the fatherland.
"Every day brings us someone interesting," the seamstresses
have found. But they wish some of those interesting people
with short memories would come to claim garments left
behind. After a waiting period, if completed garments
aren't called for, they are given to charitable
organizations in the city.
"That's where we lose money," they say through a
mouthful of pins.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Mrs. Blankenship, my Auntie, passed away in the summer of
1967 while she was watering her tomatoes before going to work.
She and Griggsy both played a big part in my life. We all lived
in the same neighborhood, just a few blocks away. Auntie stayed
with us for a while when my mother was ill, she made a lot of
clothes for us and always made our dresses for piano recitals.
On Saturdays, after they closed the shop at noon, she would
take us to Guy's restaurant for burgers, fries and chocolate
malts, after which we would go to a movie.
In later years, it was through her that I had the opportunity
to tour a home which I have always thought was the most
beautiful home in the city. It is on Mill Mountain and the
man who owned the Coke company built it for his wife.
Terra Alta was a white stucco Spanish style home which
stood out from all others on the mountain. One sunny summer
Saturday morning, Auntie called to ask me if I could drive her
up to Mrs. Nicely's so that she could fit some dresses to be
altered. When we arrived and I told Mrs. Nicely how I had
always admired her home,she said that we would take the
elevator and she would show me around the second floor. When
we finished the tour, she told me that I could browse downstairs
while Mrs. B fitted her clothes and reminded me to stop by the
cooler in the pantry for a coke - those wonderful green bottle
cokes with little flecks of ice and if I wanted to listen to some
music, I could go down to the ball room to play records.
When I was in junior high and Griggsy learned that I wanted
a set of tube water colors that my mother felt I could live
without, Griggsy told me to stop by her home over the
weekend. When I went by her home, she showed me an
old print of a snow scene with a cottage and a stream runnig
by it in a forest. She said she would pay for the water colors
and asked if I would do a water color like this picture for her
sometime. When I bought the set the next week, her
picture was my first project.
The summer that I went to Spain on a study trip at the
University of Salamanca, It was Griggsy who again came to
the rescue and did alterations on two suits for me when
Auntie said that she would not have the time to do it.
Griggsy became our across-the-street neighbor in the early
1970s when we moved into a big old two story home after
my sister moved back home with her two boys after her
husband's death. She often came over and had a cup of
coffee or glass of iced tea to just visit and play with my
little nephews. She continued to work after Auntie's
death and two other of my aunts often helped her.
When her health became worse, her daughter took
her to live with her family in California.
Marilyn
Made with love November 24, 2005
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