Granny's lace, hooked on tradition

By RADHIKA MADANA MOHAN
Contributing Writer

May 17, 2008 04:00 am

— PLATTSBURGH -- Eighty-seven years ago, Dorothy Alice Anderson Gauthier hand-crocheted a delicate band of lace to decorate the slip beneath her wedding dress. Since then, 77 of the Redford woman's descendants have been christened wearing that same lace.
The tradition wasn't one anyone set out to establish.
"We never called each other and said, 'Don't forget to use the lace,'" said Marlene D'Aloisio, who was the 12th baby to wear it. "We just did, and we asked our children to use it for their babies."
Gauthier died in 1972, but the lace tradition has continued. To preserve her grandmother's memory and recognizing the lace as a family treasure, last May, D'Aloisio began capturing and preserving the memories of Gauthier and "Granny's lace" in a journal.
"I had some time on my hands, and I always wanted to know the numbers," she said.
The biggest catalyst? Her second grandson, Thomas, would soon be born and be next to wear the lace. What number, she wondered, would he be?
D'Aloisio called her mother and aunts, gathering family history from them. Then she contacted other relatives, asking them to complete a page for each christening, decorating it however they chose. "Granny's Lace Journal," she said, "is written by the first, second and third generations to the fourth, which is the babies being born now. &It's a tangible reminder of our past along with a very special connection to future generations,"
The journal begins with a photo of the lace then others of Gauthier, followed by the baptismal pages.
WOMAN OF STRENGTH
D'Aloisio lives on Long Island but was born in Plattsburgh.
"My parents moved to Albany when I was under 2 years old," she said. (But) we visited Redford two, three times a year & always in August for the Redford picnic."
She and her brother, Gary, spent many summers in that Town of Saranac hamlet as they got older. There, her grandmother owned the Sportsmans Hotel and Bar, which she managed on her own after her husband's death. Granny was a quiet yet energetic woman who wore an apron over her housedress, D'Aloisio said.
"She made the best baked beans and crocks of salted pickles and always wore nylon stockings."
She was also a warm person who unconditionally accepted everyone.
The christening tradition began with Gauthier's first baby daughter, Alice Ellen. D'Aloisio's mother, Regina Fournier, who died last October, described that first baptismal garment for the journal: "It was a christening gown of soft medium-weight cotton with two rows of evenly spaced quarter-inch white satin ribbon weaved two inches below the neckline through a series of handmade eyelets running downwards on each side of the dress front to the hem."
TWINS TANGLE TRADITION
In about 1942, D'Aloisio learned, Gauthier had removed her lace from the original gown to attach it to her son Harvey's surplice when he was an altar boy.
"It remained there until the birth of their second grandchild in 1944 and once again was re-attached to the christening gown," D'Aloisio said.
The tradition was suspended for a time when her brother, Gary, had twins. Rather than exclude one baby, he chose to have his twins and later his two other babies baptized without the lace.
He hadn't realized, D'Aloisio said, that there could have been a solution to that problem.
"Granny had a second lace that not many family members knew of."
Gauthier had crocheted a shorter band of lace that had been attached to the hem of the slip worn under the christening gown.
Though the lace tradition skipped a generation with Gary's girls, it has reentered his family with the birth of his third grandchild, his sister said.
LACE LEGACY
Over the years, gowns have been replaced, but Granny's lace was transferred from one to the next. It has been mended by Granny's daughters, who D'Aloisio calls "the caretakers of (the) lace."
The delicate handwork isn't just beautiful, D'Aloisio said.
" ...the same lace had brushed against my mother's leg, then mine and my grandson.
"And Granny made it!"
D'Aloisio remembers her grandmother saying that she was sorry she couldn't leave very much to her family. But her granddaughter feels otherwise.
"She left us the greatest thing going," she said. "She left us the gift of her lace."
D'Aloisio's children, Michael, Kristen, Marcia and Jessica contributed some passages to the journal, one of which she feels expands on that perfectly.
"With each and every new family member that is included in this enduring legacy our family is privileged to enjoy, we will be reminded of (Granny's) presence and the dozens of relatives who have worn her lace."

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