Picture This: Easter 1950’

What do I remember of the Easter holiday as I was growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s? Bits and pieces only, if it weren’t for the photographs of me as a chubby, pigeon-toed child, I wouldn’t recall much. Those photos show different members of my family posing in front of our hoe, usually with a different car in the background. My younger sister in a new outfit, white patent leather shoes, lace ruffled socks, a frilly dress, and perhaps a hat. My brother and I would be wearing a new pair of pants, a new shirt, and if it was chilly enough a newer jacket. Dad had dark dress pants, a lighter jacket, and possibly a new tie; his new Easter item was usually parked in the driveway. Mom was a different story. She would shop for a new Easter outfit for a month or so. She always complained that “nothing fit her.” She was smaller across the top and fuller across the bottom, but eventually, she would find something, then buy shoes to match.

Easter sunrise service was a must with breakfast tucked in before regular service and Sunday school. I remember going to my grandparents Miner’s farm. The house was huge with plenty of room for cousins to run and play. I don’t remember what we had to eat, but I’m sure that we did. It was usual to gather there for the holidays for a potluck dinner, each family contributing something.

There would always be an Easter egg hunt, with hiding of real cooked and dyed eggs. This worked well until the older and taller cousins hid one on the top of a cinder block pillar of Grandma’s porch. It fell down inside where it couldn’t be reached and its sulfurous fumes made it difficult and almost impossible to use the porch swing all summer. That ended the wild abandon searches for the hidden treasures.