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I was born in the early 1950s and by the accident of birth, to a privileged family. There were five of us; our Mother, my two older sisters, one 2.5 and the other 6.5 years older than me, and our live-in Nanny. Our 'father' left when I was 3.5 years old. Our Grandparents, all four, bought us our home in 1952. Our home was previously owned by their (my Mother's parents) very old friends who retired to Florida. Their home was a short block away. We lived about a 1/2 mile from Lake Michigan in a small town called Lake Forest. Mother did not remarry. Nor was she apparently interested in obtaining a husband for the sake of satisfying the social norms of those days. Although Mother had the money and help from our Nanny, plus a very efficient woman, and her husband (The Hopps) who emigrated to the United States from post-World War II Germany. The Hopps were not full-time but were sponsored by my Grandfather and essentially his employees. These people, and everyone that ever touched our family, were treated like family by the most gracious, polite, and generous person I have ever known, my mother. My mother had pressure to get a 'man as head of household' from this incredibly conservative Catholic world in which we lived (though Catholics were a small minority in Lake Forest. Presbyterian was the dominant religion I believe. For whatever reason that was never revealed to me.
I was born in the early 1950s and by the accident of birth, to a privileged family. There were five of us; our Mother, my two older sisters, one 2.5 and the other 6.5 years older than me, and our live-in Nanny. Our 'father' left when I was 3.5 years old. Our Grandparents, all four, bought us our home in 1952. Our home was previously owned by their (my Mother's parents) very old friends who retired to Florida. Their home was a short block away. We lived about a 1/2 mile from Lake Michigan in a small town called Lake Forest.
Mother did not remarry. Nor was she apparently interested in obtaining a husband for the sake of satisfying the social norms of those days. Although Mother had the money and help from our Nanny, plus a very efficient woman, and her husband (The Hopps) who emigrated to the United States from post-World War II Germany. The Hopps were not full-time but were sponsored by my Grandfather and essentially his employees. These people, and everyone that ever touched our family, were treated like family by the most gracious, polite, and generous person I have ever known, my mother. My mother had pressure to get a 'man as head of household' from this incredibly conservative Catholic world in which we lived (though Catholics were a small minority in Lake Forest. Presbyterian was the dominant religion I believe. For whatever reason that was never revealed to me my mother declined to follow orders. She was remarkably attractive and as stated, possessed all of the social and moral Graces. Her social world was not to be imprisoned, well I guess my point is Mother would spend Wednesdays to Saturdays in downtown Chicago at least twice a month. To display how much she didn't care about what people wanted her to do, apparently through her own money purchased a 1964 Corvette convertible.
We were meticulously dressed all the time. Including my play clothes, everything was planned and our nanny executed the clothing plan each week that she would write and give to my mother for her input, getting calendars straight Etc.
Our rooms had closets that were not large by today's standards. And when we moved in there existed in each of the bedrooms and the two guest rooms, large armoires, at least in our rooms, were used for our "Dress Clothes".
On Sundays, or anytime that we were going to an event or visiting grandparents, we each had what was called a valet in our rooms. This was what you might think of a hotel valet in the lobby that would take your bags and hang up your hanging clothes. Ours were much smaller than that and were stationary, perhaps 4 ft wide with a shelf on the bottom and a horizontal bar about 5 ft or so above the base.
Again I thank my oldest sister, Liz, for her input on this and what is to follow.
When I would wake up on Sundays or special events, I would glance over to the valet and discover what today would bring from the armoire.
I cannot say this with any confidence, but I have maintained all my life, introspectively, that there were more than a few years and many many Sundays that I woke with trepidation to see what had been selected.
For this purpose, I will address a typical Sunday.
I wore Eton suits every Sunday until I was 9 years old. Christmas, Easter, and other times I wore similar outfits when I was 9 and 10 years old.
So at 8-9 years for example:
During the winter, when I was dressed by our Nanny for 10:30 Mass, she would put on my jacket but did not turn out my peter pan blouse collar. Typical Eton Suit would be:
--- Medium gray light wool, suspender very short pants, cuffed
--- Navy blue, 3 button collarless jacket, hip length
--- White round peter pan collar blouse, when older (9+) pointed end Peter pan
--- Navy and white saddle shoes
--- British wool winter coat with a peter pan velvet collar
---my sisters wore red coats with navy blue piping, trim
---I would wear Navy Blue coats with red piping, trim
Mother did not want collars to be wrinkled, so I wore my PPC inside until we got to church.
We had a family pew in row 3.
After my coat was off and placed in the coat room inside the front doors, one of the ladies would pop up the always starched blouse collars, and place it outside my jacket.
Sometimes I was able to walk down the aisle without having these collars displayed "to their best advantage". But once in the pew, the ritual would occur anyways with everyone watching I feared.
My sisters were subject to the same meticulous treatment.
I however had great fun, when walking to communion or the before Mass down the aisle, in putting just two fingers on one of the tails of my sister's large organdy (I called these outfits "Noisy") bows on the back of their pinafores.
I do recall several times hearing the laughter from people observing me just allowing my sister to walk forward and having the bow unraveled.
I was never spanked or physically touched for any punishment ever. But I am sure I was assigned some task or job that was not a good time. Helping Mrs hop with the laundry was one of them.
Though I have not been very good at pointing this out, I hope that the reader would understand that "displaying" my sisters and me, to the church population, and when we would go downtown to see The Nutcracker and other traditional plays, (where we would be very very dressed-up), was in her way, showing the world that she was perfectly in control. Whether that was true or not at least this was one very visible way for her to tell everyone that she was more than capable of single parenting three children
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