FRASER — Last May, senior parishioners at Our Lady Queen of All Saints, Fraser, put thread through needle and began their contagious “pillowcase dress” sewing operation for children overseas. Although not actually made from pillowcases, the parish has since sent 398 unique dresses made from lightweight fabric to Africa, Haiti and Jamaica.
“Some of our sisters in Saginaw have ladies in their parish making dresses, and I said, ‘we could do that too,’” said Sr. Nancy Zajac, OP. “I put it in the bulletin and had a lot people step forward. People make them when they can.”
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“I was just bored to death and I needed something to do, and this came out at just the right time,” said volunteer Sophie DeMarco, 85.
Sewing for 65 years, DeMarco started when she was in high school, sewing an apron without a pattern. “When I was 16 years old, I was sewing my clothes too — skirts and things that were easy.”
Since the start of the project, the women have since expanded their charitable efforts by making shirts and pants for boys.
Schendel, a grandmother of two, has been sewing for 45 years. She made the Christening dresses for her grandchildren out of their mother’s wedding dress, and when they gave her a new sewing machine for Christmas, she decided to put it to good use.
“They bought me a new sewing machine and away I went,” she said. “It’s my quiet, prayerful time downstairs on my own.”
Once the dresses are brought in, Sr. Zajac takes them to the Dominican Motherhouse in Oxford, where they are then sent to the motherhouse in Columbus, Ohio, and packed to be delivered by the Dominican Sisters of Peace missionaries.
To prevent the clothes from being pilfered or sold, the sisters do not ship the dresses to the children.
“The sisters are very careful. When they know someone is going to one of these places, they pack the dresses in a suitcase and take them over. They don’t just send them to some orphanage, so they go right to the children and not through organizations,” said Sr. Zajac.
Our Lady Queen of All Saints parishioners do their part by donating fabric. Sr. Zajac said one couple donates every time the church bulletin advertises for fabric.
“We’re really thrifty, my dear,” she said, laughing.
“I don’t make one dress at a time,”Wingert said. “I make five or six at a time.”
Before entering the real estate market, Wingert sewed for a living. But now, she says, she sews for charity. The pillowcase dress pattern reminds her of when she wore flour sack dresses as a child.
The pattern the ladies use is consistent with the boxed design of a pillowcase, but no two are alike.
“The ones we’re making take so much more material than the ones made from pillowcases,” said DeMarco. And whether it’s adding embellishments or buttons, volunteers make every dress unique.
When Sr. Zajac delivered the first batch of dresses to the motherhouse, she said it was like Christmas as the sisters pulled out the dresses, oohing and ahhing and pointing out the details.
The children are versatile with the dresses, using shorter dresses as tops, she said.
“I make sure to pray for every child who wears the dresses I am making,” said Nancy Radvansky, 75.
Radvansky also started sewing when she was a sophomore in high school, and has since continued for 60 years.
“I have a son that has dementia and he would sneak out of the house all the time and get lost. So I put my sewing machine in the kitchen so I could watch him and make sure he didn’t sneak out the door,” Radvansky said. “And making the dresses is really relaxing.”
“Pillowcase dresses” are widely known, the ladies said. However, the Dominican missionaries are not associated with other organizations.
“These are made in America and made in Michigan,” DeMarco said.
“Yes, we not only make cars, we make dresses,” joked Wingert.
With the ladies turning out dresses left and right, Sr. Zajac is preparing another trip to the Oxford Motherhouse soon.
“As long as there’s someone to take them over, we’ll keep making them,” she said.
Cari Ann DeLamielleure is a freelance writer from Brighton.
