My liberation from the pink Robert Gair coat

Industrialist Robert Gair invented the first folding boxes and cartons, devising machinery by which paper and pasteboard could be creased, cut and printed in one operation, producing a fine substitute for cumbersome, expensive wooden crates.

His idea was instantly successful. By the 1920s, his business, centered in a five-block-long plant in Brooklyn, acquired a number of smaller mills, including the Robert Gair Co. in Uncasville.

A number of Uncasville men worked at Robert Gair, including my Uncle Bill Bolles. I don't know much about the technology of boxboard manufacture, but somewhere along the way the product went through rollers covered with wide woven woolen material, referred to as "felt."

This was soft beige in color, with a slight nap, and 5 or 6 feet wide. It was changed periodically, and one of the perks of working at Robert Gair was the opportunity to acquire those used pieces of felt. They were soft, warm and clean and could be used for blankets, bed covers and other purposes.

Soon many homes in the vicinity boasted Robert Gair blankets. Bound with various colors of satin tape, they were wonderfully warm and comforting and relatively inexpensive. Also, they washed like a dream, and were superior to woolen blankets purchased at the store.

Uncle Bill provided all our family with this fine useful felt. My Aunt Marion, an accomplished seamstress, used one piece to make a beige winter coat for my cousin Anna, trimming it with black fur. My mother decided that she would make me a coat too, but she planned to dye the material red.

The kitchen smelled of wet wool and Diamond Dyes, but the desired red never appeared. The felt remained a sickly pink. I was disappointed, but my mother proceeded to make me a pink coat from the Robert Gair felt, trimming it with black Karakul fur from a discarded coat of my Aunt May's.

I always hated that coat. My aunts and cousins admired it and said it looked fine, but I detested it all that winter long. How happy I was when it was put away in warm weather.

I was ecstatic the next fall when my mother brought it out and discovered that, due to my growth spurt, the coat was far too small for me now. The sleeves were too short and my arms dangled forlornly. Even my mother's magic needle couldn't remedy the situation.

So my mother, in true Yankee fashion, looked for a deserving recipient of the Robert Gair coat. She observed Susie Saunders going to school, wearing a tattered ill-fitting outer garment and summoned her to the door.

"I'd like you to try on this coat," she said.

It fit Susie like a dream, and she pranced away to show her friends her new finery.

So everyone was happy. Susie had a new coat, my mother's handiwork was not in vain, and I was rid of the horrible pink Robert Gair coat forever.

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