GIBSON — As her 98th birthday dawns on Thursday, Gibson resident Sadie Odom has seen plenty of history in her years. But when asked if she’d seen anything like the COVID-19 pandemic, she immediately said no — then she got to thinking.
And then it hit her.
The current trend of making cloth masks to help medical personnel, as well as individuals stay safe brought back an old memory.
“It was around 1923 to 1933 (and) I was growing up on a farm,” said Odom, a former mayor and postmistress in Gibson. “And sometimes I would go with my father out to the fields when they were spraying cotton. Because they had to do it by hand, my mother made masks for all of them, my father and myself for when I went out.”
Odom said that the masks were usually made from old bed sheets, old cloth diapers or, if available, men’s handkerchiefs. They were used, like today, as an extra layer to protect everyone from the early chemicals.
“At the end of every day she would collect the masks and clean them,” Odom said. “She put them in boiling water to get rid of all the remaining chemicals so that they would be clean for the workers to wear the next day.”
In total, Odom’s mother made about eight masks for everyone to wear, but during this time of the coronavirus pandemic, Odom is encouraging people to be like her mother and make masks for medical personnel who are unable to have the proper personal protection equipment due to shortages.
While cloth masks do not protect 100% against COVID-19, hospitals are still requesting them for nurses and doctors who may not be coming in contact with patients who have the virus to save the medical-grade masks.
The cloth masks are also recommended for the general public to lessen the chances of spreading or catching the virus, in an effort to help medical personnel with the shortage of medical-grade masks.
Reach Katelin Gandee at [email protected]
