How does one write a story about a thimble? The notion wouldn’t enter most people’s minds. It would be like talking about a coffee cup or a teaspoon or any other inanimate object that you use, and then put away until you need it again, but not with this! No! Not with this. This thimble does not fall into such a category.
Let me tell you about this thimble. This thimble, sewn into my mother’s inside coat pocket for safe keeping, traveled thousands of miles for many days over rough seas to come here to America. She treasured that thimble because it was one of a kind: It was open in the front and she could work with it for long periods of time without her finger sweating. And it fit perfectly. It had a gold edging around the rim and it had deep-seated holes so the back of the needle never slipped out when she pushed on it to sew. I know all of this because I asked my mother questions about it when I was a young boy, and those questions would lead her to tell me stories about her life in the old country–stories about her father and mother and grandfather and brothers and sisters and her favorite brother, Shloimeh, who was always there to help her. That thimble, which never left her possession, was intertwined with all those stories that unfolded when she spoke about sewing with it.
I was very young when I learned how little of family we had here in America. Not a single person on my father’s side from the old country lived anywhere near us. My uncle Shimon, my mother’s youngest brother, and his wife, Martha, and their three sons, were the only family we had here, which is why we were very close. We made dinners together every weekend without fail. The conversation at the dinner table was where I became one with them. I then learned about my mother’s life in Poland and her stories were heartfelt and captivating as she spoke about how she worked in her father’s tailor shop–an extension of the house that they lived in. They were a very large family of 13 brothers and sisters and some of them worked in the shop on the sewing machines making suits and coats.
When I asked my mom about what she did in the shop, she told me that she sewed linings into jackets and coats by hand. I recall thinking at the time that maybe she wasn’t so proficient at using a sewing machine. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that sewing linings into jackets and coats “by hand” has to be one of the most difficult and challenging jobs for a tailor. She did that–she did it all–using that thimble.
Her first job here in America was in the Garment Center, where she worked extra-long hours, eating very little to save up the necessary money to bring her brother Shimon to America. At her work she was never without that thimble; it became like a physical part of her hand. Sadly, it was stolen one day when our apartment was broken into and robbed. They probably took it because it had a gold rim. I felt terrible about the loss of that thimble, even more than anything else that was taken, because I knew its whole story and how much it meant to her. The way I visualize it, and the memories I have of seeing my mother sewing with it, can never be stolen from me. What that thimble represents is clearer to me now, even though it was no longer in the kitchen cabinet in that oblong glass dish that she always kept important things in. It remains indelibly imprinted in my mind as I write this down for all to know.
I remember one time when she was sewing a button on the sleeve of my shirt–while I was wearing it–and she said, “Ky” to me, which meant “chew,” a Yiddish superstition that prevented the sewing up of your brain. I’ll never forget her smile and how she looked at me. It was then that I was able to see, “up close” the exact function of that thimble.
When I spoke to her about grandpa’s tailor shop, it always brought more stories and memories to her mind. When I asked her how she made a certain part of the lining like a sleeve, she would tell me and then come forth with another event she remembered. She was a wonderful storyteller, and as one story would lead into another I listened intently. I’ve written down those stories and events she shared with me that came to light as she spoke about working with that thimble.
“It was just a thimble,” some would say. “No! It was ‘way more’ than that!”
By David S. Weinstein
