In the early 1860s two brothers, AW Cushman and Alfred Cushman moved to the Longmont area and set up their homestead on 160 acres of land after attempting to strike gold in the mountains of Colorado. They went on to raise their families in the area as the town of Longmont was officially founded and grew in 1872. One of AW Cushman’s granddaughters, Jessie Cushman was born in 1908. She spent her entire 80 years in Longmont. She and her husband William Thomas raised 3 daughters, 2 of which spent their lives in Longmont raising their families as well. Having lived through the Great Depression and both World Wars she learned frugality and became an avid sewer and gardener. And as part of that she collected and saved buttons to be used on various projects. Her gardening and sewing skills were passed on to her granddaughter from a very early age. That granddaughter is my mom and when my great grandmother passed on mom became the recipient of some of her many buttons. And now, with the current pandemic and need for PPE my mom has put her amazing sewing skills to use and not only made a number of masks for myself and my fellow front line doctors, nurses, RTs and techs but she also started making head coverings. And on those head coverings she has been sewing buttons for our surgical masks to connect to to take the pressure and pull off of our ears. Wearing a mask for hours on end puts an extreme pressure on ones ears and while it seems small in the face of what we are seeing, being able to have that taken away has been huge. And so buttons collected over the years from one of the founding pioneer families of Longmont who first walked and explored the very ground where the hospital now stands are now gracing the heads and protecting the frontline workers of Longmont United Hospital. 160+ years of history told by a simple button.
Hiking Mommy 