A BED OF FEATHERS

Feather beds and pillows were traditional Czech and Slovak wedding gifts. The website entry about wedding traditions in Drahovce, Slovakia, concludes with the bride receiving a feather bed and pillows: http://www.iarelative.com/wedding/drahovce.htm

The tradition was brought from Europe to America. In Iowa Czech women would get together for feather stripping bees, similar to quilting bees, where they would make feather beds from goose feathers. The old Czech neighborhood in Iowa City is known as “Goosetown.” Historically it was a derogatory term for the modest neighborhood in old northeast Iowa City where the Czech immigrants would keep geese in their yards.

Here is an excerpt from an article published in THE DAILY IOWAN newspaper, January 29, 1981- GOOSETOWN: MEMORIES OF YESTERYEAR, that explains the tradition:

“Frances Conklin, a third-generation, lifetime resident of Goosetown, remembers,  "the feather-stripping bees held at her grandmother's home."
“Twelve to fifteen women would get together to strip the already plucked feathers from the down of the goose, she said. This was a necessary task, to be done before the quill - the essential part - could be used for beds and pillows.
“The "bees" gave the women a chance to combine business with a little socializing, Conklin said.  The work was plentiful, but so was the animated Bohemian dialogue. An ample lunch was served after each single session and a large dinner was provided at the conclusion of the seven- to ten- day affair, she said.
"It was a tradition that a set of feather pillows be presented to a girl when she was to be married," Conklin said, who still has the pillows that were given to her before her marriage.” (end of newspaper excerpt)

Betty’s grandmother, Christina Jondle, made a goose feather bed and gave it to Betty for a wedding gift. I don't know if Christina produced the feather bed at one of the feather stripping bees or if she made it by herself.

When we were kids, we would sleep under the feather bed during blizzards when the electricity, and therefore the furnace, went out.  Over the years the fabric became very soiled and stained.  Several years ago I asked Betty if I could have the feather bed.

I took it to the Czech Pillow Company in Cedar Rapids and they restored it.  They removed the feathers from the fabric cover, cleaned them and put them back in new fabric that matches the original (I also saved the original fabric).  Here is a link to a brief movie about the company: http://www.czechfeatherdownco.com/movie.php

The fabric cover had two layers.  An outer layer made of heavy cotton blue-and-white ticking (fabric that traditionally was used to make mattress and pillow covers).  There was also an inner liner made of a lighter pink fabric.

Cookie Vanous, the woman who restored the feather bed told me that the original pink fabric liner that Christina had used came from Bohemia.  When she restored the feather bed she used identical fabric imported from the Czech Republic (which today contains Bohemia).

The materials and labor to repair the feather bed cost about $300.   When I showed it to Betty and told her how much it cost to restore it, she said, “You could have bought two new quilts at Younkers for that kind of money.” She did not appreciate antiques.  That may be why our family has very few heirlooms.

Betty associated old things with the hard times of growing up during the Depression.  Although she was born in the 20th century, she lived in houses without electricity.  Even after they were married Steve and Betty had to rely on kerosene lanterns for light in their first two homes.  She remembered the chore of having to clean the soot off the glass globes. When the family was moving Betty threw away her kerosene lanterns. My sisters, Pauline and Helen, recognized them as having some value and rescued them from the trash.

Here is an Aladdin kerosene lamp like the ones Pauline and Helen rescued from the trash




And here is a photo of the restored feather bed along with the original fabric that Christina Jondle had used in 1937.