Great-grandma’s fur coat

by Rosemary Ruffenach, 2/18/08 • As coats made from the pelts of animals go, it probably wasn’t that expensive; it wasn’t mink , beaver, sable or even fox. Rather it came from the sacrifice of brown rabbits, their pelts subsequently dyed black. I inherited it from an aunt three years ago, and until this winter, had only worn it for Christmas Eve service. Even wearing it once a year had elicited protests from my daughter, though she couldn’t threaten not to be seen with me on Christmas—that would be carrying PC too far.

We figure it came to my Austro-Hungarian great-grandma in the 1930s; family lore has it that Great-uncle Ted presented it as a gift to his mother. Inside the initials “M. L” (for Mary (Peck) Laber) are embroidered in champagne-colored thread on small slips of satin that match the lining. But there is a mystery associated with the coat. Although it hangs to mid-calf on me, a photo shows Grandma in a dark fur barely concealing her knees, and she is at least three inches shorter. Further, its sleeves are puffed at the top and hang wide at the wrists, while my version has tight cuffed wrists and no puffs. Knowing Grandma’s thrifty ways, we family history detectives at first theorized that that the sleeves had been remodeled, and that, for a while, Grandma had worn the coat with its bottom turned up at least a foot. After all, she may not have had the heart to cut off good fur, especially if the coat might later be handed down to taller progeny. Why, though, if the coat had been purchased specifically for his mother, wouldn’t Uncle Ted have ordered the style she preferred?

By the 1930s, Great-uncle Ted was long past a 1920s boxing career and flush from running booze down from Canada during Prohibition (1920-1933). He had stepped up to tavern ownership and operating various games of chance. Once, he is supposed to have swallowed the pull tabs when the law appeared. Usually that wasn’t necessary, however, since he received adequate warning of their impending visits. Grandma managed the adjacent grocery store and his brother the next-door gas station. Surely, Ted could well afford better than dyed rabbit in the wrong length! Or could the coat have landed at 1730 Rice Street in exchange for liquor? Or more colorfully, could one of the fancy ladies from Chicago whom Uncle Ted was known to hang with have moved to Florida and traded it for cash? After all, Depression commerce was far more a barter system than we know today. (My Swedish grandfather, a coal merchant, took in a motley collection of merchandise in exchange for fuel, including the upright piano on which I learned to play.)

Though we could spin out other fascinating theories as to the coat’s provenance, the truth might be that there were two coats. What is so wonderful about the rabbit coat I now own is its incredible WARMTH, which is why I began to wear it regularly this winter. I was sick of cold legs, especially on my morning drives into school. And that is what earlier had drawn my aunt to it on cold days when she had to walk into a north wind on the way to work.

Sometimes I like to imagine what Grandma might have done while wearing the coat. Maybe she wore it on the days when she would take cash out of the family’s grocery store till and head out of the Laber family compound (then comprised of living quarters behind said bar, grocery store, and gas station, and the homes of two of her sons). Boarding a streetcar and she would make the two-hour trek to North Minneapolis to visit her sister, Elizabeth Peck Tell. The Tells knew that whenever Grandma appeared, their first duty was to call down to Rice Street and tattle, since Grandma liked to come and go as she pleased. Another of her favorite haunts was “Front Street.” It took her grandchildren many years to cotton to the fact that ”Front Street” was Calvary Cemetery, where she was visiting her long-dead spouse and parents.

Though widowed at 37 with five young children and lacking any significant monetary support from either extended family, Grandma did have important resources: her gregarious personality and a self-reliance learned early. One cold April afternoon in 1888, thirteen year-old Mary Peck and 62 other members of her immigrant group from Andau, Austria (then Hungary) were unexpectedly dumped on a St. Paul sidewalk by their travel “expeditor.” Luckily a German-speaking citizen came by and offered them sleeping space in an unfinished storefront. The next day, Mary saw the adults pick themselves up and seek housing and work —often at the North End railroad yards or as a “domestic.” Later, she too took up domestic work cleaning houses after her husband, Joseph, a cigar roller, died at age 38.

Luckily, one of her clients was Mr. Dean, owner of a grocery store further north on Rice St. He invited Grandma and her children to run his establishment and live in the quarters behind. As the family prospered, land and an old farmhouse were purchased at Rice Street and Larpenteur Avenue, just outside the city limits. When, in 1937, Mr. Dean decided to take over management of his operation, Grandma and Ted built on their land at 1730 Rice St., despite Depression economics. Laber Liquors became a frequent stop for Louie Hill on his way to the Hill North Oaks “farm.” (Today a Laber Liquors remains on the corner of Larpenteur and Rice situated in a strip mall, but it is no longer owned by a family member.) Over these years, Grandma became well-known in the community and was often called upon to give nursing advice when someone fell sick. Hopefully she had the fur coat when she made those house calls.

The coat would have been accorded the privilege of attending mass at St. Bernard’s Church in St. Paul’s North End community (home to Austro-Hungarians and Bohemians), and accessorized in the 1940s with a stylish velvet chapeau featuring a stand-up feather and a pompom and leather gloves. Probably it would also be displayed at the St. Bernard’s Little Flower Mission Club meetings and visits to homes in the Peck and Laber extended family circle scattered throughout the North End. It undoubtedly went touring in the Model A owned by son Ted and daughter Martha, (both of whom were known as wild drivers), in Ted’s pal Doc Schroeder’s yellow Stuz Bearcat, and later in daughter Martha’s succession of Packards.

Altogether, I fear the coat suspects it really has come down in the world when riding sedately in my unremarkable Taurus wagon and then left to snooze on top of a file cabinet during school hours, but at least it hasn’t been sent to the junkman. And that brings me to my final defense for wearing animal pelts: these particular rabbits are eighty years dead, but still of service to a frail human.