Sunday, May 10, 2009

Feather Crowns




Bonjour from Campagne Maison


Do you believe in Old Wives Tales? Sometimes truth IS stranger than fiction.

This is MY story: The WHOLE TRUTH and NOTHING but the TRUTH:

I was 18 years old in the summer of 1969 and pregnant with my first child. He was due to be born on September 22nd. For the last couple months of my pregnancy, my mother insisted that I come to her house every afternoon where we would WALK up and down the road. She believed that walking would help ease my labor pains. I should have walked more, I guess, because it DIDN’T...LOL

It was September 22nd, the day I was supposed to deliver. I was at my mothers house and we were about to start our ritual walk when one of her neighbors telephoned. She was telling my mother that in an old feather pillow that she was making a new bolster for, she had found some “feather crowns”. Now, I do not remember the story behind HER pillow. I think it belonged to her parents—that part I cannot swear to, but it had been in her family for a long time. Apparently the bolster cover had become so dirty that she had to make a new one and when she emptied the feathers out, there were two tiny feather crowns amongst them. She had heard an "old wives tale" that “if someone died on a feather pillow and went to Heaven, there would be a crown of feathers left in the pillow”.

My mother told her that YES; she had heard that story before but had never seen one of the crowns. Now, you don’t know me but I have always been CURIOUS. I have to “investigate and check out things with my OWN eyes” because to me, seeing is believing. Naturally I insisted that we go take a look. We would be passing by her house on our walk anyway.

So, OFF we went to her neighbors house and sure enough, there they were—the two of them—the most amazing, magnificent things that I had ever seen in my lifeTO THIS DAY!! I held them in the palm of my hand and touched them and stared at them and imagined how in the world they could have formed inside that bolster pillow? I had no explanation, whatsoever, as to how it could happen other than to agree with the story/old wives tale/or the however, whatever of the crowns. It was, in MY mind, a “sign”.

My son was born on October 1, 1969, with a little “peach fuzz” on the top of his head and a little hair on the back of his head, BUT, you guessed it!! The hair on the “crown” of his head was long and it swirled around forming a PERFECT HALO. A crown that looked exactly like the feather crowns that I had held in my hands only eight days earlier.



NOW IS THAT NOT one of the most strange/unexplainable things that you have ever heard?

I am SO GLAD that there is someone that has proof of their existence AND that also knows the story associated with them. I would hate to think that someday, someone would find one and not know what they were. I found Vera while I was doing a web search on the feather crowns.

I would like to thank her for allowing me to use her pictures to share my story with you. Please stop by her blog and read her own personal account of the treasures in these pictures that bear witness to the proof that these crowns do exist.

http://intouchwith-pumpkinrolls.blogspot.com/2008/10/feather-crowns.html

If you stopped by the farmhouse for a visit today, I’d love to hear what you think about this post.

Au revoir,

4 comments:

Janet, said...

Hi, Vera is my cousin. I think it is so neat that she still has these feather crowns. Until I read about it on her post, I had never heard of these.

Barb said...

Amazing story. Thank you for sharing it.

Hope all is well.

hugs,
Barb

Theresa @ Take A Sentimental Journey said...

I have never heard this before. Very interesting !

Sonya@Beyond the Screen Door said...

Hey Jacque!
Thanks so much for telling me about this post. I've never heard of this but you can bet I'll be on the look out for them. What a neat story and wivestale. I'm going to have to ask my Mom about this!