Easter Dress Disasters: A Childhood Memoir

This is me at three. Mother had made this confection of dress for Easter. There is no telling how long she labored over its puffed sleeves and tedious lace-edged scalloped overskirt. I thought the dress was okay but was disappointed Mother made me wear sandals instead of my red Roy Rogers cowboy boots. Mother took this photo with an old-fashioned Brownie camera. I was very impatient at being posed and having to stare into the sun. Sadly, this darling dress was totally wasted on me. It didn’t survive a birthday party when I came near falling in a pigpen. I’m sure these things happen to all girls!

Art by Kathleen Swain

That wasn’t my last Easter wardrobe failure. The very next Easter, Mother got a letter. Grandma was sending us Easter outfits and hats.I still had cowboys on my mind, envisioning a cowboy outfit including a red cowboy hat, boots, and cap pistols and holster. Overwrought with joy when the promised box came, I was devastated when Mother pulled out a fancy dress and straw Easter hat with fake flowers for me. Had “Damn!” been in my vocabulary at the time, I’d have gotten my fanny paddled! Mother made me and Phyllis don the damnable dresses and hats. Again, that Brownie camera came out. While Mother fumbled interminably with the Brownie, our old horse Champ strolled up to the fence and took a bite out of my straw hat bring that Easter fiasco to an abrupt end.

Despite my earlier disappointment over the hat, I wailed like a banshee. Kids!

24 thoughts on “Easter Dress Disasters: A Childhood Memoir

  1. I remember camping on land deep in the Ozark backwoods, where the farmer kept a horse who was immeasurably attracted to anything made of fabric. If it wasn’t the truck seat it was the tent itself. You’d better believe I kept a stack of throwing stones right near the entrance. Along with a big hickory stick for the wild chickens and ducks which kept coming for whatever food I had just put in my baby’s hands. Ooh, I’d had no idea how fierce I could get until God made me a momma!… 🤯

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