Old button strings told tale of love

For Betty Littlefield, 77, of Brooks, everything old is beautiful and that includes a charm string she bought at a yard sale about 20 years ago. At first glance, the charm string looks like a necklace of beads, but a closer look reveals that it is made of brightly colored glass buttons, with shanks, less than a half-inch in diameter. Each button is beautifully molded with intricate designs. The rich, bright colors include blue, pink, orange, yellow, green and black in a range of hues from light to dark.

Charm strings were created by single young women from the mid- to late 1800s. A young lady’s goal was to collect 999 buttons, the very best that could be had, from family and friends. Young ladies would get together to trade buttons – it was against the rules to buy any buttons for the charm string. When the man of the young lady’s dreams appeared, he would give her button No. 1,000. The young lady was never to add the 1,000th button herself because that would doom her to spinsterhood.

Littlefield, a former English teacher at Morse Memorial High School in Brooks and Mount View High School in Thorndike, said she doesn’t know a lot about her charm string’s history. She believes the buttons are Bohemian glass, which were made in great quantities in the last half of the 19th century by Bohemian women and children working in their homes.

But not all charm strings were made of high-quality glass buttons. Buttons in some charm strings were made of metal, rubber, wood, bone, ivory, shell, leather, ceramic and jet, also known as coal, a material made popular by Queen Victoria after she became a widow and spent the rest of her life dressed in black.

Before the 1840s, women’s clothing was either hooked or laced, but by the 1860s, buttons had become an important part of fashion design. A single garment might contain as many as 60 buttons. As garments wore out, buttons were cut off and saved. Thus, young ladies intent on making charm strings had plenty of raw material to work with.

The method for making the charm string was simple. A length of sturdy cord was tied securely to a button. As buttons were acquired, they were strung on the cord until the desired number was obtained.

Littlefield said her friend Louise Pilley, 98, a former Brooks resident who now lives in St. Petersburg, Fla., nurtured her interest in buttons. Pilley belonged to a button club and collected buttons. She, too, loved old and beautiful things.

Littlefield also likes the beauty she finds in antique sewing implements. Her collection includes a pincushion made from a leather baby bootie, several “pin cubes” – which was how the pin manufacturer packaged and sold dressmaker straight pins – and an antique Victorian beaded pin cushion with “Dear Mother” picked out in pink beads, a gift from Littlefield’s daughter.

“I never cared about sewing,” Littlefield said. “I’m not handy with it.” But to enhance the beauty of her early 19th century house, she learned to braid and hook rugs and has at least two dozen to her credit. Her teacher was Verna Cox of Verona Island.

(Littlefield is the author of “The Brown Family of Early Belfast and Swanville,” a genealogical and historical account of her ancestors. The book is available at the Belfast Public Library and the Maine State Library.)

To learn more about buttons and button collecting, stop by your local library or Bangor Public Library, which has many books on the subject, including “The Maine Charm String,” a memoir by Elinor Graham, who collected buttons.

New Leaf Publishers in Sedgwick has available a limited number of copies of “Black Glass Buttons” and “Button Handbook.” Call New Leaf at 359-2280.

Snippets

Here’s an easy eyelet and bar knitting pattern I’m currently interested in:

Cast on any number of stitches that can be divided by 3.

Row 1: Knit

Row 2: Purl

Row 3: * YO, knit 3, with left-handed needle pass the first of these three stitched over the other two; repeat from * across.

Row 4: Purl

Repeat these four rows for pattern.

Ardeana Hamlin can be reached at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.