Shirley Cockerham holds two angel dresses she created from wedding dresses donated to the Fayette County Food Shelf. The angel dresses will be used to dress stillborn babies born at Palmer Lutheran Health Center and other larger hospitals. She presented those dresses on Wednesday, Sept. 2, to PLHC.

Angel dresses give life to stillborn babies

By Chris Deback
cdeback@thefayettecountyunion.com

Even with how far medicine has come in the last century, pregnancy and giving birth can still be stressful, difficult experiences. For stillborn babies, life ends tragically too soon.

That’s why the Fayette County Food Shelf decided to start making “angel dresses,” for those children who will never know life in this world, and donate them to Palmer Lutheran Health Center.

The idea came to an unknown volunteer who asked manager Karen Martin if this was something the Food Shelf could do. Martin said she would think about it, but no more than 10 minutes later, someone donated a sewing machine to organization. An hour after that, someone donated the first wedding dress to be transformed and Martin asked herself, “Does this mean I’m supposed to be doing this?”

The Food Shelf decided to press forward, but it needed a talented seamstress who could take these wedding dresses and create from them several smaller gowns. Ann Hutchens, the Fayette County Food Shelf treasurer, knew the right person for the job — Fayette resident Shirley Cockerham.

“She is quite talented,” Hutchens said.

Shirley gladly accepted the challenge and began to work. Her talent is quite clear; in fact, she doesn’t use a pattern when creating the angel dresses. She is just able to come up with a pattern on the fly.

“The dresses were donated for the angel mom to come in and sew them,” Cockerham said. “They didn’t have somebody to do that, so I volunteered to sew them. You never know what you are going to come up with. You have to find what the bride left you.”

With 10 wedding dresses donated to the Food Shelf, Shirley, who has been in front of a sewing machine since she was a young girl, has turned all but three of them into angel dresses so far. Using her own little sewing workshop in her basement, she created numerous dresses in various shades of white, different sizes, and even for both genders.

“You learn how to design it, and then you just cut,” Cockerham said. “I cut every piece so I can use it somewhere on some dress.”

The 67-year-old Fayette woman is able to get six or seven angel dresses from a smaller wedding dress and upwards of 12 from larger ones. It typically takes her about two to three hours to make an angel dress. She likes to adorn up the gowns with some beads and even uses the beads as a way to cover holes that are already present in the wedding dresses donated.

“You don’t cut beads because they fall off the dress,” Cockerham explained. “You learn to glue your beads; you learn to lay the pattern where it belongs. When you have a hole, you have to design where you are going to put it.”

On Wednesday, Sept. 2, Shirley, along with Food Shelf staff, donated her first batch of angel dresses to the hospital in West Union.  

Palmer Lutheran marketing manager Jamie Hoey was on hand to accept the donation. She noted that while some of the dresses will stay at Palmer, most will be sent to other hospitals where stillborn births are more common. Because Palmer is only a regional hospital, by the time a mother is ready to give birth and complications are imminent, the patient is usually sent to one of the bigger hospitals, such as in Iowa City or LaCrosse.

“Palmer is very appreciative of the angel gowns and the time and love that came with the making of each one,” Hoey said. “Parents who suffer the loss of a child will be thankful for the gift and will, hopefully, find a little peace and comfort in the prayers and love that come with each gown.”

Shirley said she will continue to make angel dresses as long as the Food Shelf continues to receive donations. If you wish to donate a wedding dress, you can send it to Fayette County Food Shelf, P.O. Box 711 Fayette, IA 52142 or drop them off at 107 E Water St, Fayette, IA 52142.