Dressing Up

As we were leaving to come home on Thanksgiving Day, my mother put some stuff in my hands with her usual comment: I don't know if you want this or not, but... (She has only dial-up Internet available to her, so she doesn't read blogs.) What she gave me is a small, blue calico dress that her mother made and that she (my mother) wore on her first day of first grade. In addition, she gave me a scrapbook that her mother kept for the first few months of my mother's school career. It may seem a bit odd that I keep saying "her mother" instead of "my grandmother," but she died when Mama was a teenager, so I never knew her.

I enjoyed reading the scrapbook entries. She listed everything that Mama wore to school that day, down to what size and color panties! She pasted in a tiny replica of Mama's dress, along with a written description. There is also a sampling of Mama's first grade desk work. I felt that I had been given a treasure, but how could it be enjoyed if I simply tucked it away?

Bingo! Since I hadn't found a suitable gift for Mama for Christmas yet, I decided to have the dress, along with a couple of pages from the scrapbook, put into a shadow box. I set out this afternoon to the framing shop and it's in the works. It turned out to be about twice the price I had anticipated, but I got two of my sisters on board, so now it's a group gift. I'll try to remember to post a picture of the finished project in a couple of weeks.

P.S. Here's the one and only picture I made Thanskgiving Day... on the way home.