Bed Linens

When I was a kid beds came in three sizes: double, twin and cot/rollaway. There were no queen or king size beds and nobody seemed to notice that they didn’t exist. Mattresses were relatively thin by today’s standards and there was no such thing as a pillow-top on a mattress. Ticking was all blue and white striped. Pillows came in one size – the modern equivalent of “standard.”

From the time I was about four on we always had a clothes dryer, but one simply didn’t use the dryer for sheets. Instead, sheets were hung out on the line to dry. Bottom sheets looked pretty much like top sheets because they had not yet invented fitted sheets. I think the reason everyone liked to dry the sheets on the line is that they didn’t come out very wrinkled and they smelled nice.

In those days, sheets were white and not made out of permanent pressed material. They were always washed in hot water with bleach and bluing, ensuring a bright white. It was important to have bright white sheets. I don’t remember anyone ever ironing sheets in my time, except for the period when we had an ironer (which turned out to be of little value except for sheets). I do, however, vividly remember ironing pillowcases. My grandmother taught how to iron pillowcases—a skill I still practice today.

Sheets came in two types – muslin and percale. Nobody talked about thread count, but the greater the count, the better the sheet. “Nice people” used percale. Muslin was considered a lesser product. I could only assume that poor people slept on muslin, but it was OK for them (since they were poor and all).

Pillows had feathers in them until about the time I was in elementary school; then they started being made out of foam rubber. My father HATED foam rubber pillows and one day made quite a stink about it. My mother went out that day and bought him a new pillow. That pillow was made of goose down and cost $35 – a princely sum in 1950s dollars. I still have that pillow; it is by far the best pillow we own and I use it in the late evenings to rest my head on while I watch TV. It still has its tag on it – you know the one that you can’t remove “under penalty of law.” We are a VERY law-abiding family. That pillow is about 52 years old and it still has its tag!

Department stores used to have “white sales” – even after bed linens came in an array of colors. For all I know, they still DO have “white sales.” I just don’t pay attention to stuff like that any more, as I have a lot of sheets (and that’s another story). Now and then I do buy some sheets for our king size bed, but rarely and usually when I stumble on them cheap at some place like Costco (more on that later).

When I was about six my mother went to one of those “white sales” and got really carried away. Knowing my mother, it must have been quite a sale. She bought all sorts of colored sheets and they were even monogrammed in fancy white script letters. I had some that said PEH (Patricia Elizabeth Humphreys). They were soft pink, giving me the hint that soon she was going to paint my room pink (and she did). She also bought a set for my grandparents (who lived with us). Theirs were soft green to match their bedroom. For herself and my father she bought a pinkish raspberry color. All in all, we were pretty hot stuff with all of our monogrammed sheets in pastel colors.

Bedspreads were generally white or beige and lightweight, with little bumps in them, otherwise know as chenille. There were no pillow shams or comforters. You just pulled the spread up over the pillows (which had been rolled), after the sheet and blanket had been pulled up, pulled up the sheet and blanket and tucked them in, added a couple of throw pillows and the bed was made. I wonder why you can’t easily buy chenille bedspreads any more. They were all made by a company named Bates --- I wonder if they have a Web site? Hmmmh…

My favorite bedspread was brown, with little fuzzy cowboys on it. It was too big for my bed, so they put it on the cot in the hallway up in the attic by the attic fan. I don’t recall any ever sleeping on that cot, but it was nice to know it was there. I still have that bedspread. When our son was little I used it sometimes on his bed, but he was never that fond of it. It I now up in the cabinet above the washer and dryer with a few other odd bedspreads I am holding onto for some reason.

When I went to college my mother took me to JC Penny’s and we got matching sheets and towels. My sheets were pale apricot color, as were my towels. It was some sort of warped tribute to the Auburn University colors, orange and blue. Besides, I liked pale apricot; it went well with my freckles. My mother made me pale blue bedspreads.

These sheets served me well through graduate school, but when I got married it was time for new sheets. Permanent press was new and hot, so some of my gift sheets were permanent press and some were not. Guess which ones I still have.

In the late 60s and early 70s sheets were, like everything else, very colorful. Flowers were big and bold and the colors were bright. Bottom sheets were fitted and sometimes were a solid color in contrast to the bold print of the top sheet.

When we first got married we bought a king-sized bed. My husband is 6’5” and didn’t like for his feet to hang off the end of the bed. He selected the mattress and it turned out to be not very good and made of foam. By about 1973 it had to be replaced and we were in southern California at the time, courtesy of the air force. We went to the local mattress store and bought a mattress; it was a California king. None of our old sheets fit it because California kings are shaped differently from regular kings. Of course, we didn’t know that when we bought the mattress.

For the life of that goofy mattress, we bought California king sheets. By 1976, we were in Maryland, in the land of regular kings. California king sheets were not to be had at any price. So, we got along without new sheets, save those purchased on an occasional trip to San Bernardino (our old home) and the local Pic’N Save.

Eventually, the California king mattress wore out and we bought a regular king. The old sheets that were wedding gifts fit again and we could buy new sheets at almost any store. Ah, the freedom!

Then that mattress wore out and we bought a new one. It was somehow thicker than the old one and the old sheets (including the California kings) didn’t fit. They would spring off at the corners. Undaunted, I purchased some garter like contraptions to hold them on against their will. These little devices, that resemble a garter belt, stretch diagonally across each corner of the fitted sheets.

I bought some new sheets and they fit my new mattress just fine. For a time we were in sync – but only when I used the newest sheets.

Then I bought some more new sheets and the bottom fitted sheets were WAY too big. Not only did I not have to use the garters, I had to fold them over in the corners. Strange, I thought! Maybe they think they will shrink. Then I discovered the sad truth, the new sheets were designed for pillow-top beds. So once again, my mattress is out of sync with my sheets.

While I was going back and forth with sheets for the king size bed, I was quietly collecting twin and double sheets. My grandmother gave all of her sheets to my mother and so did my aunt. When my mother died, I got all of her sheets. Conveniently, I also got all the double and twin beds. The sheets fit the mattresses until we had to replace one twin mattress. The only kind we could buy had a pillowtop. Now my antique sheets don’t fit anymore on that bed and I have to use the old garter things, now unneeded for the king-size bed.

I still have the old chenille bedspreads on three of the beds in the house, but I have quilts for all the beds (but they are too good to use). One bed has a quilt on it. Our king size bed has a comforter that won’t cover the pillows because it is too short (but that has to be OK, as I like the comforter) and the pillows look OK in their cases. No way am I going to pull them out of pillow shams every night. Do people really do that?

What’s next? Probably a king-size mattress with a pillow-top. Only my newest sheets will then fit at all. My newest sheets are flannel. I never heard of flannel sheets when I was growing up, but in recent years I decided to try some of them. My husband insists on cutting the thermostat back at night and those flannel sheets feel great on a cold winter night. They aren’t percale, nor even muslin – oh the shame of it all! They are what might well be described as “Yankee sheets.” They are OK for winter, but not for the other seasons. Percale is still required!

Yesterday I was at Costco and looking at king size sheets. They had some for $59.95 that were of fine percale and soft colors popular today. I was tempted, but $59.95 still seems like a lot of money for sheets. I’ll have to give it some more thought and see how bad the ones I have really are. This is a major investment after all. They had some others for $35.99, but they were made out of jersey. For a brief moment, I contemplated getting a set of the jersey sheets, but I decided my self-esteem required percale. After all, I am a southern lady and a southern lady doesn’t sleep on muslin, much less jersey. Isn’t life strange?