Duds

I was thinking back to memories of the way my past relatives dressed and wondered how they would have fared in the world today where much of the person is judged by the clothing that they wear. My uncle Dale Miner would have rated right up there with the homeless street people of today. His clothing was always shabby, in need of repair, and most often grimy. His boots were always scuffed. It was rare that he was shaved. His brother Ted was rail thin and wore shirts and pants that were too large with a belt cinched tight to hold them to his body. My grandmother Rebecca always kept them washed.

She kept my grandfather Ray’s clothing clean. By the time I knew him; he’d retired from the coal mines and farmed only. When he and my grandmother were raising their 8 children, he worked in the mines at night and kept the farm during the day. He wore bib overalls most of the time and the pale blue work shirts. Often a straw hat topped his wispy white hair. His round aluminum lunch pail and his brass carbide head lamp were the reminders of his time underground.

Rebecca was the opposite of my granddad. She was tall and stout while he was short of stature and average build. Grandma Miner always wore a dress. Pants were a no-no then. I can never remember her wearing anything but a front-button down print dress with a tie belt cinched at the waist. She always wore thick, flesh-colored cotton stockings, rolled down to the knees and her black clunky-heeled, tie-on shoes. Little changed in Grandma’s attire. Occasionally she would don a necklace when we’d drive her for appointments with a doctor.

Blue jeans or shorts and high-top tennis shoes were reserved for the cousins. Usually striped tee shirts finished our daily wear for boys and girls, until the girls came of age at about 8 or 9, then they graduated to wearing dresses and Mary Jane shoes.

Money was scarce then. Hand-me-downs were most often the choices we had. There was the old joke, “Hand-me-downs came in 2 sizes, too big or too small” and that was often the case. Getting something new was a big thing then. It was to be treasured. I wasn’t raised during the depression, but the effects of it and World War II still lingered, coloring everything that we did.