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FeaturesMay 15, 1994

When I was putting together my trousseau, Mama said, "Now you'll have to have a new housedress." Note "a" housedress, not four or five. It was the pits of the Depression. To use the word, trousseau, is almost laughable. Mama wisely knew that the majority of a 1930s housewife's days were going to be spent in housedresses - a housedress. ...

When I was putting together my trousseau, Mama said, "Now you'll have to have a new housedress." Note "a" housedress, not four or five. It was the pits of the Depression. To use the word, trousseau, is almost laughable.

Mama wisely knew that the majority of a 1930s housewife's days were going to be spent in housedresses - a housedress. Breakfast, dinner and supper, your new husband was going to look across the table and very likely see you in the same dress. That's when we had meals together and robes were something you wore in hospitals.

We consulted the Sears Roebuck catalog. At that time, Sears sold dress material and had little swatches of the cotton, voile, bastiste, etc. glued into the catalog so you wouldn't be ordering a pig in a poke.

Slacks had not yet come into fashion, nor the later habit of changing dresses every day. A housedress, if of the proper color, could be worn for three days without washing, starching, ironing and putting it on again, fresh.

We fingered all the swatches, thought of any trim we might already have in the scrap bag or any that might be salvaged from other almost worn out clothes.

After much deliberation I chose a brown cotton print that had little yellowish acorns in it. I knew a lot about acorns. At that time I could have identified acorns from the white, red, black, post and burr oak trees. We had them all on our home place. I knew where they were. So, perhaps, that's why I chose this particular material. The acorn motif was familiar, not bougainvillea or oleander. It wouldn't show soil readily either.

"Now you must have pockets," Mama said and I agreed. I have always disliked garments without pockets.

"Buttoned down the front," I suggested, remembering some yellow buttons I'd seen in the button box.

"I think pinafore ruffles at the shoulders seams would be nice," Mama planned.

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"What's that?"

Mama drew me a picture and I liked it a lot. I thought I would look sort of butterfly-like and said so.

We talked about butterflies as we cut and shaped. Would they look like the brown fritillary or the painted lady ones that came to flit around our summertime zinnias? Oh, it was so good to plan and work with Mama.

"I'd like yellow rickrack around the ruffles," I suggested. Mama didn't say anything and I knew she was wondering if we ought to afford that.

"The ruffles will have to be starched and ironed," Mama warned.

"And we'll need a wide hem so it can be let up and down as the fashion changes." I knew that too. The dress was to last and last. My hems had gone up and down since the sixth grade.

We worked on that dress as some mothers and daughters would work on a bridal gown. After all, a bridal gown was worn once; the every day dress would go on and on.

It did and every time I ironed it, the brown dye in it exuded a crushed acorn odor. Serendipity!

This is just one of the memories of Mama I should have written about last Sunday, Mother's Day, but my calendar, like "Grandpa Shack's" (O'Neil) movable basketball goals he tells his grandson about, is already experimenting with that phunny phacet.

REJOICE!

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