When your grandmother is a seamstress, your mother takes your measurements and sends them off to here a few months before birthday, Christmas and Easter. Then surprise, a new dress arrives, for both yourself and your little sister!
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Old cars driving on crowded city street - for Sepia Saturday this week.
Here I stand proudly on my 8th birthday in a new outfit (red and blue plaids) made by my dear grandmother back in San Antonio TX. My little sister has the same plaid I think. We're in front of a beautiful Studebaker on the street of our first apartment (5530 Cates Ave) in St. Louis MO. Yes, I remember not only the address but probably the phone number and another license plate!
When, in 1975, I attempted to show my own sons (then at age 8 and 11) the old apartment building, it had burned down and was an empty lot. You really can't go back. (We drove our camper from Tampa throughout the summer of '75 as far as Wisconsin and Montana to Arizona and back.)
Back to the 1950 photo... besides the AAA emblem on the license tag, I'm not sure if it was still from Texas, or then Missouri. No amount of stretching, changing contrast etc. would let these old eyes figure it out. But the dark colors do remind me of 50s Missouri tag colors.
The main emotion I have? Why on MY birthday did my sister also get a new dress? What about turning 8? Wasn't that something special?
OK, maybe that’s petty. After all my family moved away from Houston, I was without any friends, about to start going to a new school, and my parents were looking for work to support us. I also remember that mid August it was so cold we tried lighting a fire in the fireplace in the new apartment…with disastrous results. Either we didn’t open the damper, or the chimney had been closed off above us. Many coughs and wearing all our sweaters later…
We also had to wait to get our furniture, as it had been put in storage when we arrived and so we stayed in furnished places until we found this apartment in walking distance of the school we would be attending (private, for Christian Science kids.)
I think we had some WW II surplus army cots to sleep on.
Boy life was so different then.
No air conditioning either, and hanging out clothes (washed in basement 2 floors below) was in an ugly back yard. (I was too short to do that.) Mom tried to plant some zinnias, but the ground was pretty awful. No hanging out clothes in the winter, because everyone heated with coal (including us.) Lots of dirty coal dust floated down on everything! Clothes were hung in the basement to dry.
And then that winter we got to walk to school in snow. Nobody plowed the sidewalks! And often they had more snow because the plows went by on the streets! Well, we had at least one day when school was closed...maybe more! We had galoshes for our feet, not that great when snow was more than 8 inches deep! But my dad got us a sled, and we found Art Hill in Forest Park, which was great long sliding down...but then someone had to pull the sled (and my 4 year old sister back up the hill - Daddy of course!)
I did have a good life, all in all. I survived childhood illnesses without any medicine...being prayed over only. My parents stayed together and I eventually figured out their way of silent communication was a form of love.
And my sister and I got a good education.
We tend to forget how life was in our early days. But you described it very well! The fact that you felt it worth mentioning that your parents stayed together is significant. Our kids won't be able to tell their kids the same... The times they are a-changin'!
ReplyDeleteI'm always interested in my grown kids memories, since they are good observers.
DeletePS Googling 'Montana plates in the fifties' possibly helps you deciphering the plate.
ReplyDeleteMissouri. Possibly.
DeleteOld is gold!
ReplyDeleteSo is silver...new friends we can always make, and I've done so many times in my life!
DeleteI laughed at your being miffed over your sister getting to have a new dress on YOUR birthday. :) My grandma Louise made my sisters & my dresses every Easter - all matching until the Easter I was 12. That Easter the 3 of us had lovely dresses of dotted Swiss, but while my younger sisters' dresses were light blue for one, and light pink for the other with white lace trim, mine was patterned light blue with flowers and no lace. She made us all Christmas dresses too, but oddly enough, never matching.
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of dresses for little girls...and isn't it wonderful to have memories of them, as well as some photos.
DeleteI hope you also got a new dress on your sister's birthday? In old 1950s Detroit, the schools were never closed. Sometimes there would hardly be any students there when there was sooo much snow. My sister and I would be there because our mother was a teacher. By the time I came along, my great grandmother the seamstress wasn't sewing any more. Neither of my grandmother's sewed us anything. My mother made us a few dresses, always matching and sort of tight around the trunk, even though I was really pretty skinny.
ReplyDeleteThanks for making me remember that.
I also had at least one outfit that matched my mother's...she made them before my younger sister was born. I think she then had her hands full and relied upon her mother to make the dresses. Sister's birthday was in February, so we often would have a Christmas outfit (usually a pretty coat and hat) and then wait till Easter. But one year I think we had "Valentine" dresses. So that would have been to include her birthday too. Oh, my mother also worked at the school, so was always walking with us to and from home.
DeleteSuch a perfect photo. The hair, the smiles, the car, all in black and white.
ReplyDeleteSusan
That's was all the little camera held at that time.
DeleteThis was a fun story to read and I love your details about growing up there. And like Kristin asked, I hope you got a new dress on your sister's birthday, too. But maybe she just got yours handed down?
ReplyDeleteMany of my clothes did become my sister's years later. But as I was a beanpole and she a little chunky, they would have to be altered quite a bit. It's good that your reminded me of her side of things! At Christmas we also received toys, of course. And perhaps books. Once I discovered Nancy Drew, I was off into fantastic adventures...though "Heidi" was kind of sad.
DeleteA lovely picture of you and your sisters in your new dresses - and a photograph that evoked so many other memories of your life.
ReplyDeleteGlad you dropped by Sue...and yes, it did remind me of those early days in St. Louis.
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