At a young age I learned the lesson that life is filled with little disappointments. I always wanted red shoes instead I had three grey sweaters and no red shoes. There were logical reasons for this that I never really accepted. For example, keeping three girls close in age appropriately dressed was a challenge for Marion, my ever practical mother. She met the challenge head on. She realized that allowing a lot of personal choice for each of us would make clothes shopping a tedious and expensive task. This was not what she signed on for. Her solution was simple -- we were dressed almost identically until we were all in high school. For example, when I was about 8 years old she got us hats. We were to wear them to church or other events where hats were worn in the 50s. She bought three white pillbox straw hats each with a different colored ribbon band. They all were held on our heads by an uncomfortable under the chin elastic. We were each assigned a hat to call our own. Mine had a navy blue band. These hats were intended to coordinate with our Spring coats. Again, the style of the coats was identical. Unfortunately for Mom, she could not obtain all three in the exact same color -- one was a camel color, one a pinkish beige and the third was a light almost ivory shade. They were wonderful light weight wool coats. Mine was the darkest and deemed a nice match for my hat with the navy band. I actually loved my coat, liked my hat and hated how the elastic cut into my neck.
Unfortunately, another dissapointing aspect of being in a big family is that even your most cherished items of clothing were purchased to be passed along to your sibling next in size. The coats and coordinating hats were kind of special, they were bought new for all three of us. My coat was passed along, but the hat stayed mine -- my head did not outgrow it as fast as I outgrew the coat. The new identical outfits all bought at once only happened when there were no hand-me-downs at the ready. Over the years, there were several other times where we all three got a similar, almost identical outfits.
Since I wore a uniform to school, my wardrobe was quite small. As the oldest of the three sisters, my clothes had the longest useful life since my two younger sisters would wear them as they grew into them. My just younger sister messed the cycle up, by growing taller than me as we approached our teens. She had to have new clothes, not an ill-fitting hand-me-down. This meant that I got to keep some items for their entire useful life. To my memory, a skirt and sweater outfit for each of us was the last of the three dress alike purchases. I actually had an emerald green pullover sweater, part this outfit, until I was in my mid-20s.
With three growing girls to dress, my mother was a bargain hunter. When Mom spotted a bargain, she could not resist scooping up three identical items in sizes that would fit her daughters. She once bought three ugly chartreuse green cardigans. We all hated them and wore them only under extreme duress. My youngest sister promptly declared hers as "too small," middle sister also did away with hers by ruining it somehow, and I kept mine until I could discretely dispose of it.
Mother also believed in neutral colors. She loved grey, for she claimed it went with everything. For me her love of grey meant that when I went to college I had a grey plaid jumper for dressy events, grey pumps for dress shoes, all paired with a nice grey cardigan. One of her bargain finds was three grey cotton sweaters. We each got one. Over time, I wound up with two out of the three in my possession. They were a fixture in my wardrobe. I had my good grey sweater (that went with the plaid jumper), my not so good grey cotton sweater and my knockabout grey cotton sweater. I kept the grey sweaters all through college and even into grad school. I kept a grey sweater in my library carrel when I began my dissertation. They were durable -- virtually indestructable. One of the first gifts my now husband gave me was a beautiful lambs wool maroon cardigan. It finally convinced me to retire the very tired grey sweaters and break from grey. I have regressed. I now wear a lot of black clothing -- dresses, pants, t-shirts etc. You might say that black is my new grey.
About the red shoes and my disappointment. Purchasing shoes for the three sisters was another thing altogether. Our feet grew at different paces, and each individual wore shoes out differently. The solution was to limit each of the girls to three pairs of shoes -- dress, school and play. My shoes were a cinch for Mom to buy. There were heavy saddle shoes for school, dress shoes were black patent leather Mary Janes when I was a little girl, ultimately followed by a pair of grey pumps with a hint of brown in a spectator pattern and white Keds sneakers for play shoes. Galoshes for rain and snow rounded out the footwear wardrobe. I always wanted red dress shoes. I got grey. If I couldn't have red dress shoes then I wanted red play shoes -- none were forthcoming. Mother declared that red shoes would not go with all of my clothes, so no red shoes for me. I had to wait until I was out on my own to get my red shoes. Over the yeats I have had many pairs of red shoes, but I did not get my first pair until my husband insisted that I buy a pair of red shoes that I fell in love with on a shopping trip. Until then, I had three grey sweaters and no red shoes.
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