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Barbara tells us about her experiences in the 1940s growing up in farm country. I was born into abject poverty and with the exception of my knickers and jodhpurs, I never had any clothing other than hand-me-downs that were nothing but rags. Even our shoes had big holes in the soles. We got cardboard boxes from the local store, drew outlines of our feet, cut them out and inserted them inside. Everybody wore what they had.
Mother had a picture showing her when she was 16. She wore Maryjanes, stockings, a straight skirt that was mid-calf length, a cardigan, and a shirt-like blouse with a necktie around her neck. That would have been about 1927, the year she married Daddy.
I was born into abject poverty and with the exception of my knickers and jodhpurs, I never had any clothing other than hand-me-downs that were nothing but rags. Even our shoes had big holes in the soles. We got cardboard boxes from the local store, drew outlines of our feet, cut them out and inserted them inside. Everybody wore what they had. Daddy earned $1.50 a day and was the highest paid man in town when he was young. Mama had a bountiful source of know-how in her head and knew how to sew, knit and crochet. She canned hundreds of jars of vegetables from her garden, was a wonderful cook and locally famous for her tasty golden biscuits. She filled four huge crocks with pickles every summer, filled dozens of jars with apple jelly, whipped out many fruit and berry pies and made memorable molasses cookies, cupcakes and popcorn balls. When winter came she concentrated her talents on making candies and cranking out ice cream in her old churn, all the while trying to confound us with conumdrums from her own childhood. Some of my favorite memories are of Mama playing Quaker Meeting with us and of Daddy telling stories he made up. Having been a water boy for the Swedes who worked the stone quarries, Daddy spoke Swedish fluently and would occasionally tell a story in English and then in Swedish. He taught us to count in Swedish and he told stories that scared us half to death and made us happy at the same time. Mama occasionally found an old song somewhere in her head and would sing the tune while she danced a jig or the Highland Fling.
A few months before she passed Mama told me she believed in her heart that God's purpose for her was to bear children. When she passed she had borne 14 children and was grandmother to 41 and great grandmother of 58.
Mama sewed what she called "pretty good" herself. Clothing was usually threadbare when her church friends passed outgrown items along to us so Mama frequently had to hurry her housework so she could cut dresses down and try to make them fit. Consequently, every dress we 4 girls ever had was either a solid blue or a blue and white print. If you look around the pews of any American church you'll see that Church Ladies still prefer to wear blue. The HBC statement that some girls wore sailor dresses reminded me of one of Mama's friends (a Church Lady! Believe you me that there have always been Church Ladies!) Her name was Hilma and she apparently felt sorry that Mama had so many children and we were so poor. No one ever had anything new to wear... ever! Hilma took it upon herself to make sailor dresses for my three older sisters. They looked fine for a change, thanks to Hilma's expertise with a sewing machine.
I remember the beanies but I thought they were a craze parents bought to satisfy themselves as much as anyone else because the most popular beanies in our area came with windmills that flew in circles over the child's head. Then someone showed up with a windmill on the end of a stick and the beanie ones disappeared. Children in my area only wore hats during the winter. We all liked tams until the late 40s brought wearing kerchiefs, which was nice because you could tie them under your chin and keep your ears warm.
I was talking to a 92-year-old woman this morning and she told me she was born and raised here - in farm country - and all her life wore her hair bobbed "like a boy," she said. Pointing to the back of her head she added, "Like this. I still have it the same way." She also told me she's weighed about 90 pounds all her life but she was expected to do her share of the work "right along with the boys" and she "wore overalls, too. I wore them to school, same as the boys did."
We had no toys so we made up things to do. One day we pre-tended we each had a million dollars and took turns telling what we would do if we really had it. I was 5 and unaware of the color red being idicative of loose morals. I liked the color so I said I'd buy a red dress and my older sister immediately said, "Better not let Mama hear you say that!"
You'll be amused by this - in our neck of the woods, women didn't wear the color red - believe it or not, because Jezabel in the bible was known to wear red. A woman who lived across the road sometimes came outside to get her milk wearing a red bathrobe - and - everyone KNEW she was "a real jezabel."
I remember the day I rushed home from high school to tell Mama I needed a pair of sneakers since I was going to be playing basketball and she said I'd have to wait to hear what Daddy thought about it. After dinner they told me I wasn't to go to any more PT classes and I wasn't going to be playing basketball because I wasn't going to be wearing "the old blue bloomers our grandmothers wore." Mama admitted she wore the old blue bloomers but their ruling stuck - I could NOT - their reason being that "the boys will see your legs" and she wrote a note to the principal and told me to deliver it. I thought that was crazy and still do.
My mother didn't wear pants until she did war work in a factory during the 40s. This was thus when American women started wearing pants. Factories replaced our men who were in the military with women. The wearing of pants was one of the requirements they instituted as a safety factor, as was the rule that absolutely no jewelry was to be worn on the wrists, hands and neck. Another was the necessity to keep your hair covered with hairnets, which women replaced by wearing snoods - an item trying to be fashionable again at the present time. I know this because I recently knitted lace wimples for my daughters and both of them have been asked if they're wearing snoods. Only pants for men were available so the females I knew bummed pants from the men they knew. The bell-bottom trousers of sailors were the most popular. Mama wore Daddy's old pants when she worked nights at a factory and she uttered misgivings about wondering whether she was being sinful!
I don't recall ever seeing anyone wear knickers other than adult men who were going to play golf. William H. Proctor, owner of the Ivory Soap company wore knickers almost daily when vacationing at his summer home on Mount Desert Island. I know because he called me his "blueberry girl." He gave me a standing order for 2 quarts every Wednesday and came to pick them up in his chauffered Rolls Royce. I was 9 years old at the time and I think he found me amusing because I questioned him about the validity and whereabouts of his millions. When he left the area at summer's end he delivered a box of clothing to my mother and told her he liked me because I talked to him. The box contained 7 knickers and 2 jodhpurs, which I wore to school even though they didn't fit me until I was 12. Elizabeth Taylor's movie "National Velvet" hit the theaters that year and he gave me his jodhpurs just in time for me to dress like her. Thus I had knickers and jodhpurs so I wore them and at the time Elizabeth Taylor's movie "National Velvet" was released, I was the envy of every girl in the entire area. Once I outgrew the garments, I gave them to a younger sister who told me she wore them all the way through high school. Both she and I remember the labels of a London haberdashery on the inside linings but neither of us recalls the name.
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