- An hour south of Mankato, I meet up with an old friend, Yvonne.

Corey lives near the small farming community of Easton.

Seeing Yvonne at her farm feels like a reunion.

Yvonne has a passion for aprons and is more than willing to share her story with me, - And it's made out of a feed sack.

- Yvonne, thank you for having me in your home to see your collection of aprons.

Of course.

I wanna know how you ever got started in this amazing collection.

- It's gotta go back to my childhood.

There was an important little gift that I received, and it was this little sewing machine, little hand crank sewing machine - That's a toy.

- It's a real sewing machine.

It sews a chain stitch.

And that's how I learned to sew and learning to sew.

And my mother always sewed our aprons and lots of other things for our home.

But I'd watch her for hours and then I'd go to my little sewing machine and I'd start cutting, and then I'd start cranking and I'd put stitches in the cloth.

And that's how I learned to sow.

And so throughout the years, this passion has started to like, you plant a seed and then it grows and it grows.

And that's exactly what's going on here today.

- How many years have you been collecting?

- Well, the actual collecting started in 2010.

However, there were a few aprons that I received as a result of the death of my grandmother and my mother.

- So it started very personal for you, didn't it?

Yes.

- Grandma Mary always wore one.

I can still see Grandma Mary when she would come to our house wearing her apron, whether it was the pink one, the blue one, or the red one, or whatever.

- Did you ever think your collection would grow to the amount that it is today?

- No.

Never.

Never.

It's, it's an amazing journey.

- So of course, I wanna know, how many do you have?

- Well, today, right now I have 1,563 aprons.

- Not even a round number.

You know specifically what you have.

I do.

Which is really cool.

Yvonne, are aprons a historic story?

- Definitely a historic story.

It follows all of the, the timelines of history.

And I have an apron from the Civil War with a southern bell on it.

This is my oldest apron that I claim to have in my collection.

- Wow.

Where in the world did you get that, - Would you believe?

Down in Texas, in a bin of aprons for $1.

And then this is another one of my very prize, and this is coming into the beginning of the 19 hundreds.

It's a very short little apron.

It's got insets in it, and they pinned it on.

It does not have a neck strap to hold it.

So much history.

And as you come down through the decades from the Civil War to those Victorian era Edwardian era, and then you come into the roaring twenties, that's a whole nother area.

You talk about roaring twenties.

Yes.

Here's the long, the long waistline.

Yes.

What's interesting about it is this, the skirt is probably the original, the thirties, the time of depression, 1930s depression era where they used the string that they closed the bag with for the embroidery thread.

And then of course, the forties and the wars were definitely a part of the apron.

The 1950s when the apron became the icon for the American homemaker, the advertising and all of the different things that was going on during the fifties after the war, kind of made her the queen of the kitchen.

- How did the sixties, - In the sixties change?

Sixties of course, was that bold color.

We got into a lot of boldness, bright colors in the seventies.

Oh my gosh.

We got the wild seventies.

But what's interesting about the seventies, the apron followed the style of dress and the seventies, remember we had the long dresses come back for just a short period of time.

The apron also is, is long as well.

- Where do you see aprons going into the future?

- I see aprons coming back.

Oh, here's the one just for you, Doug.

We've gotta see all sides of it.

Oh yeah.

Yes, she's good.

Yes, - This is good.

Yes, this is good.

Boys could wear boots.

Oh, def, right?

- Oh, yes, yes.

- Now, it wasn't only for the kitchen.

Could an apron be used in the shop or the garage?

- Definitely.

Definitely.

Remember those nail aprons.

- Yes.

- Yes.

Let me show you an an important nail apron of my - Life.

I wanna see it.

- I bet you do.

How about this one?

- Lampert's Lumber, - Lampert's lumberyard of Huntley, Minnesota.

And this is father.

- How do, how do I know?

It's his Huntley.

It doesn't say Huntley on father, - Because Father Albert lived in Huntley - And And he's not gonna lie.

- No.

And he never did lie.

- But Lamperts is a big name in Minnesota.

Yes, - Yes.

But this is my dad's.

Oh, nail apron.

- And I can see my uncles, I can see my dad and my grandfather, they, they wore these as a accessory to their clothing every day.

Oh, because they were carpenters.

- Carpenters, yes.

And look at how frugal Father Albert, Doug, I, I want you to understand that every apron has a story.

Every apron has a past, and every apron has history.

And that's why I have such a deep passion for all these aprons.