Wednesday, March 7, 2012

THE 1940s WOMAN



This is a picture of my mother. Anyone my age can take one look at it and know it was taken in the early 1940s. It's the hairdo that shouts that era the loudest.

It was the time when "rats" were used for many of the hair styles, rats being "stuffing" of a sort that the hair was wrapped around and then pinned in place, making pompadors that framed the face. Pincurls instead of rollers or blow-dryers were used to make curls.

I have lots of snapshots in my albums of mother during those years, always wearing her hair in what she called an "up-do." But that's really not the way I remember her.

She was always pretty, but I remember her mostly in "house dresses" - washable cotton dresses that were worn in the daytime, and mostly with an apron over it. The apron always had a bib on it and it was functional, used to keep the dress clean so when Daddy came home from work she looked fresh and not like she had worked hard cleaning the house, doing the laundry, ironing the clothes, sewing dresses for my sister and me, and all the other chores that fell to the "housewives" during those years.

I wear an apron when I cook and when I do dishes. People my age do, but for the most part the next generation doesn't even know what an apron is. I don't think they know what "house dresses" were and I KNOW they don't know what rats were.

I do have later pictures but still this is my favorite picture of her. Her name was Virginia Louise Ryland Dobbins. She was born in Colorado Springs on June 14, 1911 and she died on February 3, 1982. She was a good wife, a loving wife and loving mother.

2 comments:

Olga said...

She was born the same year as y father, but shares the birthday of June 14 with me. That is a great picture--a beautiful woman.

Dee said...

Your mom was very pretty and stylish as is her name.