This weekend being Easter, I started to think about Easters Past. I remember spending weeks sewing a turquoise patterned dress, a matching turquoise linen coat with lining that matched my dress and wearing it to church on Easter Sunday – the traditional time for showing off new clothes. I must have been about 14 or 15 at the time. I was so proud of my accomplishments. Mom couldn’t sew or at least she always got into pitched battles with her sewing machine when she tried to use it. Dad felt that clothing was strictly necessary for warmth and modesty. I learned early that if I wanted fashion, I would have to create my own. Of course at that time, fabric was cheap enough to make sewing your own clothing quite affordable.
About twenty-five years later, I had another memorable Easter Experience. If you think I was being particularly oblivious in this story, just remember that I had flown from San Francisco to Princeton New Jersey for a meeting after which I flew back to San Francisco and directly on to Hawaii without going home. That three 5+ hour flights in the space of a couple of days. Not sure why I decided to do this. I guess I thought I needed a break. I no idea what time I landed in Hawaii but know that when got to the hotel, the Hilton on Waikiki Beach, I went straight to bed.
My room at the hotel faced the beach and was on about the 15th storey. I arrived the Saturday night of Easter weekend. Exhausted, I was woken up early the next morning (I wasn’t sure if I was awake or dreaming and it still wasn’t light) and heard an angelic sounding choir singing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”. In my sleepy haze I thought, “I’ve died and gone to heaven. I guess that’s better than any alternative.”
It took a few minutes to become fully conscious and I staggered over to the window and what did I see? An Easter sunrise service on the beach. Ah, so I wasn’t dead yet.
Yes, the new Easter outfits. I think Mom, Agnes and I had matching dresses from Sear’s Catalogue one year ‘”mother and daughter dresses”. It speaks to the lower consumption in those times, doesn’t it, that that was the occasion for one spring outfit? Most of us girls sewed clothes although your skills were more advanced than mine at that point. I remember white shoes for summer, dark for winter and of course, matching purses – mostly handbags I think. And bouffant hair!
In dealing with Syrian refugees we learned that at the end of Ramadan (I think) they tend to get new clothes for their kids.