My grandmother was a girl during WWI, just married before WWII (with my grandfather going to fight in 39), and of course she saw Korea, Vietnam, the cold war, etc.
When I was young, maybe 4, I remeber her teaching me to sew. It is one of my earliest memories of her, along with her saying "hay is for horses!", every time I said "hey grandma" to her.
I recall asking her why, and she became very soleoum, and said that I had to learn how to fix my own socks, that no one would do it for me, in a trench, during a war.
Can't say I blame her thinking, with it being the height of the cold war, the Cuban missile crisis just over, and her whole life and mind filled with the knowledge war.
Yes, soldiers need to know how to sew.
Thank you for this lovely snippet.
Next to programming, it's probably one of the most helpful things I learned in school.
"Home Economics", was a thing at my school too, then we did sewing again in scouts and cadets, as the GP says make-and-mend is considered an essential survival skill. Thing is, I'm rubbish at it and usually stab my finger with a needle, but to this day I still pack a mini sew-kit wherever I travel.
Even if I'm rubbish at it and take forever to thread a needle, I've still made field repairs to gear while traveling that were a lot better than having no repair at all.
My mom taught me the stuff kids were learning in HomeEc classes.
I remember my mum saying "if you're going to program you better learn to type" - that was when I was going into gr 10. I didn't always follow her advice but I did take the typing class.
They typing class I took was a proper typing class though, so much more learning than just where the keys are located. Old Skool stuff too like double spaces at the end of sentence puntucation. How to set up tabs. How to format letters. Just to completely date myself, I was taught PASCAL!
https://www.army.mil/article/146104/clothing_repair_taught_f...