"Repair, reuse, make do, and don't throw anything away" was a motto during the Great Depression years of the early-to-mid-1930s.

During those difficult years, many farm families -- and other families as well -- did not have enough money to buy new clothes at a store.

Instead, mothers mended socks and sewed patches over holes in clothes. Clothing was recycled and reused as younger children "made do" with hand-me-downs.

When farmers brought home big sacks of flour or livestock feed, farm women sometimes used the sacks as material to sew everything from girls' dresses to boys' shirts and even underpants.

Flour and seed companies caught on, and soon, as a sales incentive, new patterns were created on the sacks.

As part of the Iris Festival, which is coming up May 17-18, there are plans to have a display of authentic articles of clothing that were made from flour sacks or livestock feed sacks during this period of the nation's history.

If you have saved any clothing of this kind and would be interested in having it included in the display, please call Judy Breckenridge at 638-8983 or email her at judy.breckenridge@gmail.com.

Breckenridge writes the "Thinking It Through" column that appears each week in the Accent Section of The Greeneville Sun.