Page 48 - July1998

190 NAT]ONAI, BUTTON E ULN,ETN\] July 1998

BUTTON BITS

By Ellaraine Lockie
No matter where I go and mention that I'm gathering material for a button
folklore book, someone nearly always seems to have a button-related story.

I I was recently in New Orleans and heard an intriguing button story from
tour guide, Thomas Duran. There in the 1880's a prominent butcher named
Hans Mueller allegedly murdered his wife by pushing her into a large meat
grinder. A few days after her disappearance, customers began complaining
ofbroken buttons and bits offabric in sausages. This alerted the police,
and Mueller was eventually arrested. He never stood trial, however,
because he began seeing his wife's ghost and was committed to an insane
asyh"rm where he committed suicide.

I R few weeks later a woman from Colorado told me about a display rn
Sturbridge Village Museum in Massachusetts which shows buttoned pleats
on boys' shirts and pants fiom Colonial days. As the boys grew, the
buttons were unbuttoned, thus lengthening their clothes to accommodate
their growing limbs. Yet another fashionablc and functional use of our
beloved buttonsl

I Rnd in ldaho, a man at a party told me a.joke which he thought was
uproariously funny: What goes around a butt-on? A billy goat.

I A rrewly-released children's picture book entitled Bone Button Borscht bt,
Aubrey Davis is a fresh version of the familiar folk tale, Stone Soup.
Instead ofusing stones for the soup, ofcourse, this version uses buttons.
The button soup brings social life back to the community of a miserable
European village.

I Last month I said I'd list additional historical reasons for men's cuff
buttons, bLrt it's too lengthy. So I'11 add one at the end of each column.
Here's the second one: Simply, buttons were an ingenious way of
preventing sleeves from hanging down and impending movement.
Publishing updute on the button.fblklore book: l,lo nev's os t,et.front the
interested publisher. Keep anecdotes coming to nte plea.se crt 627 Templeton
Ct., Sunnytale, CA 94087. Thank,vott.