My Folks, Rocking Fashions of the 1930's

The other day I came across a folder of old family photos that I had filed in the wrong place and hadn't seen for years.  Many of the snapshots showed my parents as they were in the 1930's. (They were married in 1932, but I, their first child, didn't come along until 1941.)
The thing that struck me was how dressed up everyone was in the 1930's.  Even in the 1950's, when I was growing up, I remember my mother would always put on a hat, even to go next door.  And when it was a tea party or church, both she and I would wear a hat and white gloves.  (Please click "read more" to see the other photos)

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A Tale of Three Wedding Gowns

 

 

The other day, on the track of some photos I took when we were living in Greece in the seventies, I dragged out of the closet two sealed cardboard boxes containing all our un-sorted family photographs from that decade.  Although I didn't find what I wanted, I unearthed a treasure that I didn't think existed -- a photo of my parents dressed for their wedding in August of 1932.

I had heard stories of the sweltering day when my Minnesota-born father arrived–landing in a Kansas cornfield in the small private plane flown by his (rich) brother-in-law Millard, who was to be his best man.  The wedding took place in the church of my mother’s father, a Presbyterian minister, in Oswego, Kansas, and then the reception was held in the church hall or in the rectory next door where my mother had grown up.

I was always told that the amateur photos someone took didn’t come out, so the bride and groom had to re-stage the event. But many details in this photo seem authentic to the wedding day—the three white calla lilies my mother told me she carried, and the look of terror in their eyes.  My mother (Martha Dobson Paulson) is wearing a Juliet cap, I think it’s called, a drifty veil and a bias-cut long white satin dress that looked like a slip or a nightgown.  The photo doesn’t really show the gown, but I remember, when I was about 10 or 12 years old, finding the dress in a trunk.  Naturally I tried to put it on but, even as a child, I was too wide to pull it over my hips. (My mother struggled all her life with being underweight.) 

I assume that this dress was made for Martha either by one of her sisters (there were seven girls in the family—all talented at sewing) or by her mother, Anna Truan Dobson, who gave quilting and sewing lessons as well as teaching French and piano.  There was not enough money, I suspect, in the salary of a minister with nine children to buy a wedding gown, even if there had been an appropriate store in Oswego, Kansas.

 Finding that photo reminded me of buying my own wedding gown in New York in the summer of 1970.   I was making about  $100 a week as a journalist, and shopped my way down Fifth Avenue, until I got to Lord & Taylor on Fifth and 38^th.   The matronly saleslady in the bridal department brought out what I recognized as The Dress as soon as I tried it on.  It was a sample, worn by a model, in a size six. (In those days models wore sizes six and eight. It’s not that models have become thinner over the years, it’s that the definition of a size six and eight have changed.  Now models wear sizes zero and two.)

This dress was everything I wanted—it had lots of lace and a modest neckline and long sleeves. (In those days no bride would dare to wear a strapless dress in church.) It had a lace-edged train and buttons all down the back. And because it had been worn, I could buy it at half price--$250 instead of the original $500!

The headpiece—a circular lace-covered ring with a short veil of tulle with unfinished edges—cost me only $30 because I had it made by one of those milliners working out of a cubby hole somewhere in the fashion district around Seventh Avenue.  The sort of open pill-box shape was my private homage to Jacqueline Kennedy

I already knew which photographer I would use for the formal wedding portrait--Jay Te Winburn, a society photographer who became famous for his shots of Brenda Frazier, the debutante of the year in 1938. Brenda eventually became so notorious for her social status and peculiar beauty-- her white-powdered face and crimson lips--that she and her debut appeared on the cover of Life Magazine in the midst of the Depression.  She lived a tumultuous life as the epitome of the “poor little rich girl”, and before she died at the age of 60 in 1982—in fact when she was only 45 years old—photographer Diane Arbus took a photo of her propped up in bed with a cigarette in her hand and a fur wrap around her shoulders, looking haggard and old:  a cautionary tale for all debutantes.  

I chose Winburn because he took only black and white photographs, using only natural sunlight that poured through the windows of his second-floor studio on 57^th street.  When I posed for him in my princess-style dress (everyone had a princess-style wedding gown in the early ‘70’s) he said to me, “That headpiece is not worthy of the dress.” I knew he was right, but I couldn’t afford a better one.   He also told me that I was to be one of his last brides, as he was retiring. True or not, I always like to say I was the last Jay Te Winburn bride.  

In those days The New York Times wedding pages would use formal portraits of the bride, not snapshots of the happy couple in a casual pose.  And when I collected mine, I was proud to see  “Jay Te Winburn Jr.” on each one in his miniscule script.

When daughter Eleni broke the news to me in June of 2010 that she was planning to be married in Greece, and that the wedding was only four months away, she added that we had an appointment to go shopping in Manhattan at one of the only two places in New York where a bridal gown could be bought off the rack. It was called The Bridal Garden and we found it on the ninth floor of a grim industrial-looking building on 21^st Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

The gowns in the vast suite were all samples, most of them worn once by models and then donated by the store or by the designers themselves.  All of the gowns are sold for a fraction of what they’d cost at retail, and all the proceeds go to charity—to a charter school in Bedford Stuyvesant.

There were two other bride-plus-Mom couples there, shopping with the efficient help of salesladies Winona and Vivienne. Eleni found The Dress within ninety minutes, a vision in point d’esprit lace with a halter neckline and a beautiful lace-edged hem and train (like mine).  And on her wedding day on 10/10/10, she carried calla lilies --as did my mother in 1932-- but Eleni’s were miniature and flame-colored.  Her lace mantilla was a vast improvement over the headdresses that her mother and grandmother wore.

When Eleni made her selection, the salesladies told her the dress was unique—it had arrived from Barcelona, Spain, only a week before, donated by the designer, Rosa Clara, and it was immaculate, having never been worn.  (Dresses that have been soiled are cleaned by the Bridal Garden’s special dry cleaner for $250—a bargain price today, but back in 1970, $250 was what I paid for my whole dress.)

Winona said that most brides, when they find The Dress, get a particular expression, a “bride face”, when they see themselves in the mirror.  Eleni was wearing her “bride face”, and when she twisted up her hair and Winona placed a simple veil on her head, I felt my eyes fill with tears, just like all the other MOB’s who come to The Bridal Garden.

Eleni wrote a check to pay for her own dress—less than half the price it would have cost in Barcelona, and all for a good cause.  Then we headed off to a French restaurant nearby, to have lunch and raise a glass of wine to the One Perfect Dress. 

Soon it would be flown back across the ocean to Corfu, where it would be topped by a Spanish- style mantilla, posed on a red staircase, and worn in an open, horse-drawn carriage to a Catholic Church for the first wedding mass, then paraded around the town square, escorted by musicians and costumed troubadours, to a Greek Orthodox church for a second ceremony. Then it was walked down cobblestone steps to the edge of the sea, below an ancient fortress, to the Corfu Sailing Club, where it would  twirl to “You’re Just Too Good to Be True”, and finally, lit by sparklers and a shower of good wishes, would sail away from the shore into the moonlit sea of the future.

Three generations of wedding gowns, each with its own tale.

A TEENAGED GIRL’S MEMOIR OF THE CIVIL WAR

(The Story Behind the Photograph)

The girl in this faded carte de visite (CDV)  photograph was born in 1847, so she would have been 14 when the Civil War began and 18 when it ended.  Her name was  Eliza Buffat (later married to August Jules Truan, who was a seven-year-old boy when he arrived in the U.S. with his parents from Switzerland on the same boat as Eliza’s family.) She was my mother’s maternal grandmother—my great-grandmother. 

Eliza was the child of two Swiss-French immigrants who arrived in the United States on July 4^th 1849 with their four children, including two-year-old Eliza. Five more children would be born to this family, who settled in Tennessee—a state dangerously divided in its loyalty to the North and South by the time the war broke out.

Here are her parents Pierre Francois Buffat—a miller and farmer—with his hand firmly on his Bible,  and Sylvie Tauxe Buffat. I believe these images are modern photographs of daguerreotypes.

Seventy years ago, when my mother, Martha Dobson Paulson, was pregnant with me, she typed up all the family history and memoirs she could find.  Using lots of carbon paper, she made copies for her two children as well as her eight siblings. (Keeping track of history was a lot harder before the days of computers, Xerox machines and the internet.)

Among the memoirs included in the two spiral-bound volumes was a long one by a Calvinist paternal ancestor from Tennessee who was taken at gunpoint into the Southern army after his brother left to fight for the North.  He was captured and put in prison in Chicago, where most of his companions-in-arms died. While that long memoir sounds dramatic, (although it is filled with religious meditations about how Divine Providence kept sparing him because  he read his Bible every day) I prefer the 11-page memoir written by Eliza Buffat for her grandchildren, recalling the life of a teenaged girl in Tennessee (“Northeast of Knoxville”) during those turbulent years.  Because Tuesday marked the 150^th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, I thought I would revisit my great-grandmother's memories.

“Every little incident was an exciting one for my sensitive nature,” she began. ”I had been in my young days exempt from the confinement of the school room on account of sickly infancy and youth and I had been raised to an outdoor life…When the war broke out my habits and taste were still in line with sunshine and carelessness…

“The first I remember of war talk was about the winter of ’60 to ’61. My parents had been reading the newspaper one evening and exchanging thoughts when my Mother exclaimed “Le pauvre Sud” [The poor South] in a very sympathetic voice….About Dec. of ’61…my brother Gus had gone to a neighbor and from there enlisted in the Conf. Army.  One Sunday we were coming back from Sunday School when at the head of the lane…we saw coming up the road the first body of soldiers, only one company of infantry.  The sight thrilled us with enthusiasm for many a day….How we would devour news from the front.  Our enthusiasm was like the mercury.  When good news it would go up—it was oftener up at first; but toward the end, it would be very low.  We girls were so strongly prejudiced against the Federals, we never wore dresses that had blue figures….Uncle Alfred was exempted because he was a miller till about 1863, then no one was exempted; not even ministers. All from 18 to 50 had to go.

“Some of our neighbors who were Unionists had guards to protect them from marauding bands and my father thought as he had taken the oath  [to uphold the Union? JPG] he was entitled to protection and asked for one which was granted and two soldiers were stationed at the mill…One Sunday evening one band of about 15 marauders came at our house to pillage  They wanted meat and we brought them what we could spare, but they were not satisfied and wanted to search the house.  At a sign from my father, we all took refuge in our front room and locked the door.  They came to it, ordered us to open. Uncle Alfred told them we had a protection from the Government and they were liable to be punished.  We had not gotten our guards yet, but Kinzels had, and when they began to pound on the door, my father thought of Kinzels’ guard and turning to me said, “Eliza, prends la corne et appelle.” (Take the horn and call [for help]. )

“I rushed to the attic window and blew a loud call.  We were not suspecting such a quick answer to our distress call.  These men were wicked and proved true that “the wicked will flee when no man pursue.”  They…ran to their horses and when at about 100 yards from the house fired a volley on it but hit no one.  This stratagem succeeded so well that the next time we did the same with the same success, only this time my father and I followed the retreating gang, not thinking of danger.  When halfway to the barn, the gang was at the head of Kinzels’ lane, we saw them halt and fire.  Even then I was not thinking of danger till my father called my attention to the whizzing of balls thick around us….Such was the reign of terror we lied through till near the close of the strife.”

When the dreaded Yankees in the form of General James Longstreet and his men besieged Knoxville at the end of November, the family and their farm were surrounded by troops but the soldiers did “not take a thing except to burn our fences.”  “Then Longstreet retreated to VA for nearly one week and the army passed in order; not as in a hurried retreat.” 

One evening, according to Eliza, a group of high officers including, she thought , Longstreet himself took over their house for a “consultation (to which we did not take part.)”  While the officers were in the house  “a man of mixed uniform came in and put a bold face to the situation and was closely questioned by the officers….After the army was all gone, a neighbor found on a tree, about one mile from us, what must have been the fate of a spy.”

When Longstreet retreated and Confederate soldiers moved in to the farm, according to Eliza,  “Their conduct was always marked with courteousness and appreciation.”  The children of the family played games, pulled tricks and chatted daily with their favorites among the officers and soldiers.  A Captain Parker gave Eliza a little doll he had found on a skirmishing field—it was dressed in Yankee blue. “We became attached to some of those officers and generally invited them for breakfast” which nearly led to one man’s being court-martialed for leaving his post.

When more Yankees in the form of  “General Gillem’s  men, and the 113 KY” moved on toward Virginia, an officer of high rank demanded that  Eliza’s brother Alfred “show him the way to Bean Station…It was a ridiculous request to think of 10,000 men starting and having no leader.”  Alfred pleaded that he did not know the way until the officer drew his pistol. “He answered not a word till about 14 miles from home they turned him loose and he turned his horse homeward through woods he knew not, but God watched over him.”

Next came the 118th Ohio regiment to take over their house and farm until they were driven back by the Confederates. Sometimes the family found their property in the line of fire between the two forces.  At one point, Eliza’s father heard gunfire and told her to bring the family’s last horse –a mare--into the barn for its safety, but the horse had sore feet, couldn’t walk  and Eliza “fancied I could hear bullets whizzing like bees,” so she left “Bichette” to her fate.   The mare survived.

Shortly after, her father became ill and told Eliza and her brother to find a doctor who was visiting in the area.  It was bitter cold.  “We found two poor horses that we rode 4 miles on frozen roads… When we approached the house we saw a big placard nailed to a tree on which was in big letters ‘Small Pox.’ We did not stop at the sight but were admitted by the fire, where the doctor was sitting, having several big pusticles [sic] visible on his face.”

The ailing doctor gave the children a prescription for their father and the next morning, in a snowstorm,  “Brother Emile and I started to walk into town to get medicine.  I had on a ‘split bonnet’, a warm linsey dress and a thin green and black checked cape….I unknowingly dropped my cape and went perhaps two miles before I found out.”  The children evaded soldiers on guard, made it to a drug store, and when they started back in the snow, Eliza found her cape, to her great relief.

“During all those dark days we’d keep a supply of provisions concealed.  My father made a sham wall to the attic and we’d hang old clothes around to hide all joints.  Also we’d take some large sums of money and papers to hide [buried outside].  Twice my father took me to share with him where he was putting some.”

 “Girls and women had to work like men,” Eliza writes. "We did not cut wood.  But my tendencies were to work with horses. … My father yielded to my great wish to let me plow.  With my little brother Emile, we raised the two ’63 and ’64 crops.  Plowed for wheat, corn and potatoes and sugar cane.  We’d use only shovel plows, but managed to do fair work.

“All the time that troops occupied Knoxville, their favorite place to camp was on top of the hill east of the old Scotts Mill. ...At Scott’s Mill they were near a large spring.  We’d have to go through their camp on the way in and out of town, but were seldom spoken to by anyone.”

“The Northern soldiers, real soldiers, did not do much harm,” Eliza related,   “but the loose people following armies are dreaded. They had mercenary men who lived on what they could steal.”

She ends her letter to her grandsons, “If ever you are called to fill a place in our Government be faithful and work for PEACE. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.'  Grandmother Truan."

Then she added a P.S.:  “Pennies were not used to make change till after the war. The last of Confederate times, we’d pay $10.00 for a calico dress and $20.00 for a sack of flour.” [These were outrageous prices  because the average working man made about a dollar a day.]

And that was the end of my Great-Grandmother''s recollections of a teen-age girl who wasn't afraid to confront  Smallpox, enemy bullets, a shovel plow and attacking gangs of thieves  when she was a young teenager in Tennessee.

A Wedding with Hummingbirds

(Please click on the photos to enlarge them. See the hummingbird in the flowers upper left?)


Last weekend, we attended the wedding of my brother’s daughter, Lindsey, at the Parker Hotel in Palm Springs, CA. It was moving and beautiful for many reasons, not least the magnificent grounds and gardens of the hotel, but for me it was very special in an unexpected way, because it seemed that my late mother was there in spirit throughout the ceremony.

Martha Dobson Paulson died in 1985 at the age of 74. At that time Lindsey was only five years old, so she didn’t know much about her paternal grandmother. Last week, Lindsey was the first girl of Martha’s five grandchildren to be married.

Hummingbirds were always a special symbol of my mother. She had hummingbird feeders filled with red syrup hanging in her garden and rejoiced when they were used by the elusive visitors, which zipped around like tiny helicopters. Before she died, Martha chose the mausoleum in a San Pedro cemetery where her ashes and those of my father would be kept in brass boxes shaped like books. She selected their glass-fronted niche in the mausoleum because it had a view of a pond where ducks and swans swam.

When I went back to visit my parents’ graves some years ago, I attached some carved wooden hummingbirds to the window of the niche. I did the same to a framed photo I have in our hall of Martha posing with two of our children in 1976.

Last Saturday, as the wedding guests assembled at 6:30 for the outdoor ceremony, we admired the giant floral arrangements on each side of the altar and the pathway of white rose petals prepared for the wedding party.

We quickly realized that the place was alive with hummingbirds —dozens of them swooping toward the flowers, hovering stock still in the air, then darting away as we tried to photograph them.

The music began and my brother walked the bride down the rose petal path toward Mike, her waiting groom. The judge began to speak, leading them through their vows. Some of us were distracted from his words, watching the hummingbirds at play.

Near the end of the ceremony, a hummingbird flew directly in the face of my older daughter, Eleni, and then stopped, hanging in the air about a foot in front of her, motionless except for the blur of its wings. The bird and Eleni stared into each other’s eyes. I had never seen a hummingbird stay so still for so long —as if trying to communicate. Later I asked my daughter what the bird said and she replied with a smile, ”It said, ‘You look good!’”

After the ceremony, after the newlyweds were showered with yellow rose petals, there were cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in another garden as the sun set. The small tables held bowls in which floated white gardenias, yellow lemon slices and votive candles. I noted, but didn’t mention, that gardenias were my mother’s signature flower. When she was young, she liked to tuck a gardenia into her black hair.

We all moved through a hidden gate into a magical fairyland where we sat at tables for the toasts and the meal. The bride was lovely in her slender strapless lace gown with its long train pinned up for dancing.

I was astonished to learn that the couple had chosen for their first dance “Stardust”, a melody that was popular more than 40 years before they were born. I knew it well—it was my mother’s favorite song, sung by Hoagy Carmichael, and she played it on our old Victrola constantly when I was a child. But Lindsey and Mike had chosen it without knowing that.

The wedding of Martha’s first granddaughter to marry was, from beginning to end, a lovely, never-to-be-forgotten occasion. And I think my mother enjoyed it as much as any of the guests. Maybe more.