Grace Tatum, Cradle Club past president, talks about the Cradle Club’s sewing work.
Audio Credit: The Miss Margaret Robins Archives of Women’s College Hospital.
As a young mother, Grace Tatum joined the Cradle Club in 1947. She held the office of club president from 1955 to 1957. Even after the Cradle Club dissolved, she remained a dedicated volunteer at Women’s College Hospital.
Interviewer: Can you relate what the purpose of the Cradle Club was?
Grace Tatum: Purpose of the Cradle Club? You mean, in work?
Interviewer: Well…
Grace Tatum: Everything. All right-
Interviewer: There appears to be two segments to it. There was a work segment, and um, a fundraising segment, I would take it.
Grace Tatum: Well our work segment was that everybody was supposed to make at least a garment a day, every day of the year. And we, we accomplished that pretty much. Sometimes we were late. We made the worst thing, the worst thing to make were the flannelette diapers. And they all had to be done by hand. And they were heavy flannelette, because in those days they used very heavy flannelette instead of the nice little things they use today. And we made the, uh, flannelette diapers, um, quilts for the beds, sheets, binders, uh, face cloths, a mask for the doctors. I’ve got a lot of down here. [shuffling noises.] And one year, I don’t know whether I brought that note with me, but one year we made a thousand and some articles. And another note I have here, we have 900 and… nine hundred and… [shuffling noises]. All these crazy notes. 974 articles in that year. Which was ‘46.