In the days when girls were required to wear dresses to school, Louise and I were prepared for the first day of school. Louise wore her store-bought (hand-me-down?) brown and white dress and her brown and white dress shoes with anklets, and I wore a made-over green plaid dress with my favorite penny loafers. Notice that the main road through downtown Penrose was full of ruts - dried for now, but susceptible to exciting times when the rains fell or the snow melted. The first day of school was still very exciting to us. Who knew what adventures were around the corner?
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
First Day of School, September 1945
In the days when girls were required to wear dresses to school, Louise and I were prepared for the first day of school. Louise wore her store-bought (hand-me-down?) brown and white dress and her brown and white dress shoes with anklets, and I wore a made-over green plaid dress with my favorite penny loafers. Notice that the main road through downtown Penrose was full of ruts - dried for now, but susceptible to exciting times when the rains fell or the snow melted. The first day of school was still very exciting to us. Who knew what adventures were around the corner?
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3 comments:
What a wonderful picture, you both look ready to meet the new year of school. Somewhere by the mail box and out of sight must be your sack with your new school supplies. 1945 was my last year at home and Mother taught me to read, probably just to keep me occupied.
Anyway, you both look beautiful.
As to the road you are standing in/on, remember how the bus picked us up first and then went all the way up to Kellers & Kings? Then it came back and went on the other road by our former little house. That made for extra minutes on the bus and if we missed it at our driveway, it meant walking down to Shumways corner.
You both look so neat and clean. I am always amazed at how, with such a limited amount of $, you looked stylish, clean and ready to face the world. What a difference a "we can do it" attitude made/makes.
How times have changed. Laura even keeps scented soap in her classroom to try and encourage the less fragrant kids to be a little more tidy. She did use air freshener until that was put on the bad list.
By the time I rode the bus, we would watch for the bus to go west up the road, and we knew we had just a few minutes to gather up everything dash to the mailbox where we waited our turn to be picked up. We would watch out the west window and when we saw the bus at Fred Hopkins we made the lane dash. It was heavenly when Mother started teaching in Powell. No more bus rides, no more frozen toes in the winter - that was such a luxury.
I barely remember the dress, but thought it was something special. But the shoes were really special, because it was hard to find stylish shoes in my size, so I was quite proud of those shoes. I was all grown-up, a fresheman, no less. Elizabeth, 5th grade? I remember the first day of school was one to wear your nicest clothes. In my teaching, on the first day the kids always looked so nice. We also dressed up on the last day of school, which kids don't do nowadays. Of course, their clothes now are so casual, almost anything goes.
I still have dreams of standing at our bedroom window watching for the bus to come from Kellers - in the times when it went up that way first. But I do remember walking down to Shumway's corner, and I think we used to get off there at night so we didn't have to ride all the way up to Kellers. We had a long enough bus ride as it was. What memories one little picture can bring. This is one of my favorite pictures.
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