Easter Bonnets

 Easter Bonnets March 4, 2008




When I was a little girl, I was so excited about Easter dresses and bonnets shown in store windows and newspaper ads. Other little girls wore frilly, brand-new party dresses in pink, yellow and blue to Easter church services every year. Though they usually shivered in their lacey white socks and spring flower dresses, I couldn’t help but admire their patent leather Mary Jane shoes and Easter bonnets with flowers and ribbons. Though I was warm in my old winter jacket, wool pleated skirt and white blouse, truth be told, I wished I could be them. I was jealous!

Easter dresses were my yearly dream, but there wasn’t any extra money for frivolities at my house. Mom did spend a few pennies at the dime store downtown on yellow, chenille baby chicks to decorate our Easter dining table along with the dyed Easter eggs.

I remember one year Aunt Sadie sewed dresses for my baby sister Barbie and me on her treadle Singer sewing machine. My Easter dress was an ice blue, puckered, nylon fabric with puffy short sleeves and a Peter Pan collar, with a big bow tied in back. Proudly I wore a rhinestone locket with my sapphire birthstone, a gift from Elmer, my favorite prisoner at the jail.

Posing Barbie and me on the front step of our house, Mom took several photos of us with her Brownie camera. I had a fresh haircut and Barbie’s straight hair was curled for the holiday guests my parents had invited for ham dinner and scalloped potatoes after Easter church services.

Years later, things were different. I’ll never forget shopping with Mom for a “marked down” dress hanging forlornly on the rack at the back of a local department store. By this time I was in junior high, waiting for my body to develop like the other girls I’d peek at in gym showers. Why was I one of the last to develop, to get a garter belt, to be chosen on a softball team, to have a boy look at me? That mauve dress with stitched down pleats on the bodice and a navy polka dot bow at the peter pan collar was my Easter dress. No stiff, starched crinolines were required. It was too big for me. Back then, parents thought kids could “grow into those clothes” and save a few dollars.

One item my parents didn’t skimp on with money was good shoes. We had to have Buster Brown shoes so our arches would have support, and our feet wouldn’t develop corns or hammer toes. We went to Iverson’s Shoe Store in Alexandria where a cardboard, stand-up Buster Brown and his dog looked down at me with their big brown eyes.

Today I wonder who would come up with such an ugly dress for a self-conscious, budding teenager? It wasn’t pretty in pastels with lace or ribbons; it was bland. But it was somewhat new. The discount rack hadn’t frayed the polka dot bow or faded the dress. No one trying on the dress had torn the hem or dirtied the neckline. For some reason, that not quite-right dress remains registered in my mind.. Maybe what remains is the uncomfortable feeling I had when I wore that dress. That year I also wore my first pair of silky nylons with seams running crookedly up the back of my leg with stiff ballet flats.

Bunnies are building nests for their babies-to-be as they hop their way to our house through crunchy snow. Colorfully dyed eggs have to be hidden for the annual Easter egg hunt. a tradition at our house, from the time our kids were little people, when I dressed Andy in short pants with a matching jacket, shirt and knee socks. Kate wore an Easter dress with bunnies eating carrots appliquéd on her white collar. A straw hat with ribbons tied around her chubby chin kept flipping off her head as she ran.

I'll never forget Dave filming the kids and their cousins running around our yard looking for hidden eggs to drop into their straw baskets. Kate and Andy spied the same blue egg, hidden under a tree covered in leaves. Rushing to grab it first, they collided! Noticing that Andy had a few more yellow and green eggs than she, Kate dove for the blue egg, getting grass stains on her new dress. Her hat fell off, crushed under Andy’s kicking foot. He wasn’t about to let big sister grab that egg without a tussle! Andy wrestled the egg from big sister’s scratching fingernails, only to have Kate smash his blonde head with her straw basket!

It wasn’t a pretty sight. Dave kept filming the riotous fray; I ran to break up the fighting twosome as the relatives laughed uproariously! It was an Easter to remember for years. We play the same video each holiday.  Some things don’t change.