Antique and Vintage Beaded Bags

When I was a kid I remember snooping through my grandmother's attic.

She had all kinds of neat old stuff up there... And I mean OLD!

She had newspapers with headlines about World War I. And magazines with illustrations of Gibson Girls on the covers.

She had glass milk bottles, and leather-bound books.

Looking through her attic was like going to a museum.

One of the neatest things she had up there was an old camelback trunk. The hinges creaked when you opened it up, and you always got a whiff of mothballs that made you sneeze.

But inside that trunk was where she kept the best of her ancient treasures.

There were tintype photos with hinged, embossed cases...

Indian arrowheads that had been plowed up from the fields of Grandma's farm...

And a leather pouch filled with coins... silver dollars... indian head pennies... liberty head nickels.

A dark wooden box within the trunk held two beaded bags...

One of them had a metal hinged top with a jeweled catch. It was made out of dark, almost black, iridescent beads. Their faceted sides sparkled as they caught the light from the bare bulb that hung from the attic ceiling.

The other beaded bag had the design of a peacock woven into its sides. I remember its ruby eye set into the turquoise blue of its head. Its long tail was made up of strings of beads that hung off the body of the bag.

The bag could be cinched closed by pulling on twisted satin cords woven through eyelets that were set into its top edge.

There was also a royal blue satin bag in the box...

And within that bag there was one more beaded purse and a faded photo of a man in uniform standing beside a woman in a long white gown.

The purse was damaged, but I could see that it had been a real beauty in its heyday.

It was made of satiny white beads, with loops of beaded fringe draped over its exterior. Several of the loops had broken and a lot of the beads had fallen into the bottom of its satin resting place.

Once, when Grandma had discovered us kids looking through the trunk, she sat down and told us the history of some of its contents.

The white beaded bag had been part of her wedding ensemble. She described her satin gown and a gauzy veil and told us how wonderful the ceremony was.

She told us that the man in the photo was our grandfather. He had shipped out to Europe just a few months later...

to fight in the first World War.

He never returned.

I thought I saw a tear in grandma's eye as she described her wedding day.

She told us that the gown was borrowed from a cousin...
just for the day.

After the wedding, she had returned the gown...

and never saw it again. Now all she had left from that special day was the fragile beaded bag...

and the faded photograph.

I don't know if your own family heirlooms include any beaded bags, but if you love them as much as I do, read on...