Occasionally, at book signings, someone will come up to my table and see my book and ask, “What is a button box?” Sometimes, I will have my family button box with me and I can show them. It seems that people either had a family button box and know what they are or they’ve never heard of them before.
Years ago, every household had a button box. In the days before we had a store on every corner, people made their own clothing, and buttons were used over and over on new garments. When old clothing was worn out, the buttons would be removed and placed in the family button box to be reused at another time. Think of it as an early version of recycling.
A button box is simply a container for storing your buttons. People kept their buttons in all sorts of containers, and these were often passed down through the generations. Many people used tins for their buttons like my family did, but I’ve also heard of a lot of people using glass jars such as Mason or Ball Jars, old cigar boxes, wood boxes, metal boxes, bags, and baskets.
My family’s button box was originally an old fruitcake tin. “Chicago” is stamped on the bottom of the tin. This makes sense because my great-grandmother’s family came from Sweden and settled in Chicago.
Many people have fond memories like I do of going through their family button box with a beloved mother or grandmother. As I say in my book, my mother and I had a familiar ritual for going through our button box. We would search for our favorite buttons first, and then we would pick out the familiar ones that had come from our clothing. Next, we would go through the button box and find other interesting buttons and wonder about the clothing they were on. To this day, I still love to put my hands in the button box and feel the cool buttons against my warm skin. I guess because it makes me think of those special times with my mom.
Since the publication of my book in 2014, lots of people have shared stories about their family button boxes with me. After they buy my book, people will often find their family button box and send me pictures. Many of these family boxes held more than just buttons. A lot of them were jam-packed full of other treasures too!
In the past, button boxes seemed to be a catch-all for the small trinkets and doodads that people wanted to keep. I’ve been given several button boxes by families who didn’t want theirs and I’ve been delighted by the variety of items stored in them. Besides buttons, some of the things I’ve found in the boxes are keys, barrettes, screws, coins, bullets, keyrings, bits of lace, thimbles, beads, earrings, nails, marbles, sewing needles, matches, dice, rubber bands, chalk, seashells, clothes pins, bobby pins, pictures, Girl Scout pins, rocks and stones, guitar picks, brooches, safety pins, typewriter erasers, diaper pins, locks, buckles, hat pins, paper clips, magnets, small chains, tape measures, wooden spools, watches, chalk, Christmas ornament hooks, hair bows, military patches, medals, and crochet hooks. All these items would find a home in button boxes, and they would turn into treasure boxes!
In today’s modern world, fabric and hobby stores now sell new containers for buttons and other sewing notions. However, many people still have and treasure their old family button boxes.
Here’s an exerpt from my book, “The Button Box”:
The button box was filled with hundreds of buttons of every size, shape and color. As a child, I used to wonder where they all came from, and I imagined a lot of people walking around with buttons mising from their clothing. Sometimes my mother would look through the button box to replace missing buttons on our clothes. At those times, I used to worry that the buttons would all be used up, but over the years the button box remained full.
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