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Between Friends with BobAnn Breland

I remember it so well. The prettiest dress I ever possessed as a child…and it came as a “hand-me–down”.

It was one of the few times we had the wonderful experience of opening a box of clothes handed down from another family member, usually from cousins. I opened the box and there the dress lay, right on top. It was velveteen and any little girl of my generation loved the luxury feel of this soft fabric.

The dress was made on princess lines, with a sort of fitted waist, short sleeves and a little Peter Pan collar. The best part was it was a beautiful maroon color and had gold buttons all the way down the front. I had never had anything maroon and I had never had anything velveteen.

I never gave any thought to not wearing a dress because it was worn previously by somebody else. When I outgrew my clothes, some lucky cousin got all of my things. So why shouldn’t I have the same pleasure? I was a child of the 1940’s and both pre- and post-World War II times were pretty hard for most people.

I remember the thrill of digging into a box or bag of newly-arrived clothes, although the opportunities were few and far between. Mostly our clothes were new things, because I didn’t have too many cousins just the right number of years ahead of me so that I could wear their outgrown things.

Somewhere between my childhood and the days of my own children, something changed and hand-me-downs became a dirty word. Nobody wanted to wear “old clothes” any more. One might be stuck with her older sister’s outgrown dress, but they wore it for every day and not to school. How mortifying!

Still it was a shame to waste good clothes and the old clothes were still packed in boxes and bags and sent to the closest fitting friend or relative, who were usually happy to receive them even during better, more prosperous times.

Then there came a time when you couldn’t give them away. Nobody wanted good used, still serviceable clothes. Baby clothes were a different thing. They made the rounds in families. Whoever was expecting a baby could also expect to get a supply of clothing for the new arrival. But outgrown clothing? Alas, nobody wanted them.

In another era, garage and yard sales appeared and people flocked to these places to buy good used clothing, among other used things, called suitably enough, antiques.

“Don’t throw those old blue jeans away. They’re good merchandise at a garage sale. Everybody is looking for faded jeans,” was the buzz-word. Faded jeans were in style and nobody asked if they were stone washed or simply used.

“What is a hand-me-down?” a child of today would probably ask. It could be hard to explain something that only a very few years ago was an accepted part of life. I can just see their expression when it was explained to them.

“You mean wear somebody else’s clothes after they got through with them? Echhh…’” It is really a shame that they don’t have the oppor-tunity to share in the delight of digging into a box of hand-me-downs, trying to figure out what fit them and what fit their siblings, who were also digging furiously.

Back in our grandparents’ time, nothing was thrown away. Patchwork quilts were born when scraps of fabric were cut from good places left on an otherwise totally worn-out piece of clothing and used to make something to keep the family warm.

I wonder what today’s kids will have to think remember when they grow up. I recall with great nostalgia the maroon velveteen dress with the gold buttons all the way down the front.

Whoever passed that dress along probably never got as much pleasure from it as I…even if it was just a “hand-me-down”.