Anyone here remember when every little girl wore her best dress and shoes to church on Easter?

[bobbieinok]

[AJT]

1. Yes. I was a tomboy and hated every minute of it.

[TEB]

8. Thats funny

[procon]

11. I was a tomboy too, it was my protest platform in the 60s.

My mother was a fake christian, in it to be admired in her nice clothes and hobnob with the patrician class, she'd buy us kids new clothes and herd us to the church like we were tricked out show dogs. I still fondly remember the Easter I finally refused to be exploited and just told her, "No" and went skateboarding with my friends.

She stopped dragging us to her show and tell events after that.

[GP6971]

2. That

or if they could afford it, went out and bought a new outfit.

I remember a lot of emphasis on hats too

[Kittycow]

17. As Catholics, I got a new hat with elastic under the chin!

My parents were very frugal, so my dress was usually a cast-off from my "rich" cousin.

I'm still salty about all the hand-me-downs, but I found out as an adult that my dad invested all the saved money. So now they have a comfortable retirement in their '90's and a decent estate.

But the little girl inside me is still bent out of shape over it

[MaryMagdaline]

22. I remember the Easter hats

Actually we had to wear hats every Sunday to Mass. Women had to wear the lace head covering. I wanted to wear one of those, but then head coverings were passe by the time I was old enough.

[RandomAccess]

41. Why not hats for the women??

I grew up Catholic too and there were never any such restrictions in my diocese.

[MaryMagdaline]

43. I misspoke

Women had to cover their heads. They could wear hats or veil-type coverings. Girls did not wear the lacy veils, only the hats. I wanted to wear the lace veils.

[bettyellen]

44. If you forgot your hat, theyd pin anything up there- even a Kleenex!

[MaryMagdaline]

45. That I do remember!!!

[suffragette]

71. I remember that! I thought the mantillas were beautiful and wanted one.

I did have a church dress. We were poor so I only wore it on Sundays. It was a light yellow, frothy little number. I was quite the tomboy, but I did like that dress.

[RandomAccess]

46. Ahh, thanks.

That makes sense.

[Kittycow]

47. I think I got the lace thing about 8th grade. (1967)

It was called a mantilla. I liked it. This was in Bend OR when it was a small town.

Once I pinned a humongous red bow on the back of my head and thought it quite chic but my classmates had a different opinion. Humphh!

I remember pinning the Kleenex on your head too!

[MaryMagdaline]

50. That makes sense. You had to be a certain age

Vatican II hit before I was confirmed. About 4th or 5th grade. No meatless Fridays, no covered heads, no Confirmation names (I was mad about that one ... wanted to take Veronica or Joan).

[maryellen99]

54. I went to Catholic school from 3rd-12th grade and we took confirmation names when confirmed

This was back in the 1980’s. Mine was Elizabeth.

[MaryMagdaline]

55. Damn ... my diocese did away with names 1970's

Savannah Diocese - I lived in Macon.

[maryellen99]

58. Thats interesting. Im in the Archdiocese of Detroit nt

[MaryMagdaline]

60. I was born in Detroit ... Providence Hospital

My parents met at U of D after WWII.

[maryellen99]

62. I was born there as well and my dad was an U of D as well nt

[MaryMagdaline]

65. I think those Jesuits were Christian Socislists

That school had a great influence on our family's politics.

[Kittycow]

56. Mine was Bernadette, for no particular reason.

I would be mad too, not to have a Confirmation name.

Hey, maybe I can get some Lourdes Water off of eBay and be cured of my chronic pain!

[MaryMagdaline]

61. Love that name!

[Kittycow]

64. Now that I reminisce about it further...

I think that I had just seen "The Song of Bernadette" film on TV and was enamored of Jennifer Jones as St. Bernadette.

I know my mother complained about my choice and fifty years later, she's still complaining about something. (Her last complaint was Hillary tripping in India. )

[MLAA]

33. Its that damn elastic...I think we are suffering the lasting effects of that torture!

[MaryMagdaline]

53. So true!

[bobbieinok]

19. Just when I finally found a hat style I really liked, hats just went out of style (61 or 62)

[Chemisse]

3. Yes. And Easter bonnets!

I always dressed my little girls up too, at least when they were little and enjoyed it, even if we were only going to dinner at the grandparents' house.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Heck, yes; I was one of them.

It was kind of a big deal. We wore white gloves and a hat, too. I just ran across such a photo from the '60s (I was a teenager then) in which the whole family was dressed up for Easter. Dad and the little brothers were wearing suits and ties and Mom had her hat and gloves (which I had rejected by that time). That might have been the last time I dressed up for Easter, but before that it was what we did every year, after finding all the hidden eggs.

[tblue37]

30. And patent leather white Mary Jane shoes! nt

[TexasBushwhacker]

90. Which Mama polished with Vaseline! N/t

[CrispyQ]

5. Every year a new dress, usually hand made by my mother.

We also had a lot of spring birthdays that fell on Easter & my mom made her famous chocolate coconut bunny cake.

[Cartoonist]

6. I'm the guy in the chair

[Arkansas Granny]

37. Hey, I think I saw that chair on Antiques Roadshow recently and

it appraised for big bucks.

[jayschool2013]

89. Thank dog

that you're reading a newspaper.

[TEB]

7. I do remember

My wife getting our daughters ready and they wore their Easter dresses.

[Tatiana]

9. And pink patent leather Mary Janes?

Yes, that was me!

[tblue37]

31. Ours were always white. nt

[catrose]

39. PINK?

I am swooning with envy. My mother would never let me have pink or white patent leather shoes because they would just get scuffed up. Same for coats: always dark. (Not that we wore coats on Easter, no matter how cold it was.)

I am going to spend the day dreaming of pink patent leather shoes.

[Kittycow]

52. I'm swooning over the pink patent shoes too!

It's not too late to score a pair, but in my case they would have to be pink patent leather orthopedic shoes.

Now, there's a vision!

[catrose]

84. Exactly!

Pink walker, pink cane...we can do this.

[Historic NY]

10. I remember a new easter suit and a fedora hat....

and a hanky for my pocket. We would go to church and to my grandmothers with an Easter lily.

[NCTraveler]

12. I was surrounded by many of them this morning. Nt

[spanone]

13. me and my two brothers got red blazers...my sisters dressed up...it was a big deal

[rusty fender]

14. Yes. New Easter dress every year until

that year my mom had to work and my dad took us kids shopping for Easter outfits. I chose pants and sneakers

[Runningdawg]

15. I remember...

Our church had wood benches, no pews. No A/C either, just a few fans. I remember sitting on a stack of crinolines on those wooden benches with the sweat running down my legs and how bad it made me itch. Dad jerking me outside for failing to sit still was a blessing.

[Hortensis]

16. :) Never were such days. Remember, not all were

Christians and not all Christians participated.

These days, of course, "best" dresses are a lot less frilly and ostentatiously feminine due to cultural changes related to new roles for females. Also, because of technical advances, girls' everyday clothes are a lot nicer on average so the differences between everyday and best aren't so marked.

Here's a smile from Atlanta. This was Saturday, actually.

[LAS14]

66. Big smile. nt

[StarryNite]

70. Awwww

[crazycatlady]

80. You obviously haven't met my nieces (3,5)

They're as girly as can be and most of their dresses are pretty frilly. The netting (tutu type material) for skirts is very popular with them.


Anything they can wear to make them look more like (DIsney) princesses the better.

[Hortensis]

85. Lol. My beautiful girly-girl DIL drives her daughter crazy

by buying her granddaughter frilly clothes in the now 7-year-old's favorite bright pinks and purples. As you say, Disney princesses.

I'm just a step- greatgrand, one among various grands. But I haven't done bimboism in any years, so I step lightly subversively, but step. "Just sitting around being admired as a princess is boooring!" This winter's pink fur-trimmed boots, given happily because she wanted them, also came with a book about being a zoologist because she likes zoos.

[crazycatlady]

88. Other than Disney Princesses

There's a picture book series called "Fancy Nancy" that the girls are obsessed with. Everything has to be 'fancy like in the books.'

My older niece won't wear pants ("they're for boys'). She does have leggings she wears under dresses/skirts.

I will admit to wearing dresses/skirts more just because they're more comfortable. I have a hard time finding pants that fit me right, especially with the 'ankle' pants so trendy right now. The last thing I want to do is rock the "I'm 8 years old and just had a growth spurt" look.

[Bayard]

18. Oh yeah baby!

New dress, little flowered headband kind of thing, little white gloves, and patent leather shoes.

One year, I was forced to be in the choir that Sunday. So had the heavy robe on top of the Easter finery. Passed out cold from the heat. The preacher dragged me by my feet out from under the choir half curtain, and my embarrassed Dad marched down front to carry me out.

Ah, good times.....``

[csziggy]

21. Yeah, the white gloves were a bane to my existence

Keeping them clean was bad enough, especially since everyone wanted to hand kids chocolate, but by the time I was ten no women's white gloves were large enough for my hands. Mom went nuts trying to find gloves for me - at ten my hands were strangled by too small gloves. The next year Mom simply gave up and I was conspicuously the only female over two that did not have gloves on in church.

By the time I was twelve the church was air conditioned and my allergies to fragrances got me out of church - by the time the first prayer started, I was sneezing constantly and would be sent out to sit in the car. I spent a lot of Sundays sitting in the car reading which I found a lot more enlightening than the sermons from our minister!

[Duppers]

72. You poor thing.

Someone should've thought about the temp being too high for kids burdened with those robes.

[LAS14]

20. Yup, purchased for the occasion. With hat and gloves!!! nt

[democratisphere]

23. And don't forget the Easter Bonnet!

[treestar]

24. Yes, in fact we had to get a new dress

at one point, my mother sewed and made the dresses. You got shoes, too, which were patent leather and shiny and white or even red.

And the hat. You had to have a hat.

By the time I was a teen, this was all gone (late 1970s)

[Dream Girl]

25. a Purse with nothing in it except a handkerchief, white gloves, bonnet, ruffly dress

[lkinwi]

26. I think I loved the bonnet more than the new dress and shoes.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

27. Yes, and as a child I liked Easter because

it was one of only two times I got new clothes. The other was for back-to-school.

Otherwise it was hand-me-downs or a quick trip to a second hand store.

[dhol82]

28. We went to church once a year - Easter.

Always got a new dress for the occasion.
Finally convinced my mother I was not needed there when I was 16.

[BigmanPigman]

73. Me too but at age 10.

Dad never went and when my sister and I were 10 we were given a choice and we said, "NO!" After that we were all atheists, slept late on weekends (no more CCD), weren't shamed for not giving as much money as the next person on the published and circulated collection list and no more making up sins to tell the priest in confession since we were good kids and didn't even do anything "bad" that often.

[dhol82]

74. We went to a Russian Orthodox Church

It was suitably called Our Lady Of All Sorrows.
It was a real orthodox one with no pews and women on the left and men on the right.
Some of the old ladies used to kneel on the wooden floor just to make it more interesting.
The service was quite lovely and interesting. Since the church was in the city the parishioners walked around the block with choir singing and everyone holding candles. In the old country you would walk around the church itself three times.
Anyhow, I was an accommodating child and it was a fun adventure for the time I chose to go.

[BigmanPigman]

75. I never heard of that before...how dramatic.

I kind of like it as far as an outsider looking in. It seems like something a director would throw into a movie scene for extra "atmosphere".

[dhol82]

76. Yeah, that is probably why I liked it

It was observational theater.
You could walk in and out whenever you wanted - cross yourself the correct way (right to left) and you were good to go. People congregated in the vestibule or out in the street. It was very fluid except for the old believers.
And it would make a great scene in a movie. Remember being in Odessa once and noticing a baptism going on in a church. Really great theater.

[Greybnk48]

29. We got beautiful bonnets and white gloves too

to go with our dresses and paten leather MaryJanes. Beautiful coats too! The only Holiday my mom did that. I think she was keeping up with the Jones'.

[OhNo-Really]

32. New Easter dress and shoes. I loved it and Binky, the fav'd white chocolate rabbit in my basket

Innocent times back then in Maine.

[mcar]

34. I was one of those girls

Hats too. I loved it!

[milestogo]

35. Yes, it was all about the dress, the shoes, and maybe even the hat.

Go to church to see everyone and be seen.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

36. No. Because that time did not exist.

Assuming your nostalgic memories were universal erases many experiences that were just as important. "Remember when" is fun, and can also reshape the reality of the past.

[Drahthaardogs]

82. Huh?

What the hell are you trying to convey???

Of course that time existed. Just like the one where men wore ties to Church, the Mass was said in Latin and women wore veils.

Some of us were around and remember pre. Vatican II.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

93. Not every girl went to church. Not every girl dressed up in a new dress and hat.

Sure, it happened. But saying "every girl" did so is inaccurate, and an example of how nostalgia erases other valid experiences.

[Drahthaardogs]

94. Well, I guess if you take the OP as literal, you are correct

And I would also say that among those who DID regularly attend a Christian Church, this was the norm.

I don't buy a Kantian approach to this one. Sorry.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

95. Okay.

[catrose]

38. Of course! With a hat!

And the dress was always blue to match my skin, because invariably a cold front came through on Easter.

[NastyRiffraff]

40. Strange, but the only thing I remember

about an Easter outfit was white crocheted gloves. And a hat of some kind (my family was Catholic). Now I'm being nagged by people in my apt. building to go to church. No thanks.

[sinkingfeeling]

42. Heck yes, including straw Easter bonnet and white gloves.

[Kirk Lover]

48. I remember not caring about the dress. No hats in my household....thank goodness.

[anneboleyn]

49. No, but we werent religious and I grew up in Southern California surrounded by other non-religious

families (a few catholic families that really never attended church and some (sort of) Episcopalians like ours that went every ten years or so for a wedding or funeral). I think there were a few families that went to church on Easter, and some did do presents of candy/baskets, but “every girl” wearing a dress to church...no way. This was in the 80s/90s.

[maryellen99]

51. Yes and was always not allowed to wear my new white patent leather shoes until Easter Sunday nt

[Demovictory9]

57. yep. Bought new each year for Easter.

[Awsi Dooger]

59. Still plenty of examples

I attend church only on Christmas Eve and Easter. This morning it was an overflow crowd in Coral Gables, to the point they were scrambling to find enough folding chairs to place in the aisles alongside the pews. Throughout the service I noted kids who were dressed immaculately. A family nearby had perhaps a 10 year old boy in a 3-piece suit alongside two sisters in dresses as described earlier in this thread. Classic Easter finest.

In contrast, the people who were dressed very casually were millennials without children. Late in the service they had a greet your neighbor type of thing where everyone stood up and was supposed to exchange pleasantries with people nearby. The girl in front of me who turned around to shake hands was wearing an Aerosmith T-shirt. Her husband or boyfriend was wearing a rather shabby golf shirt that was not tucked in.

[Hamlette]

63. and a hat

[LAS14]

67. Since so many got so much pleasure, how come our grandchildren have to miss out?

Assuming they celebrate Easter.

[Drahthaardogs]

91. Because younger generations aren't going to Church

Thus no reason.

[malaise]

68. My mom had the dressmaker come up with a variety of designs

made with the same cloth. We had to match and the styles varied by age. Then there were the hats and ribbons, shoes and socks.

[lunamagica]

69. This thread needs pictures!

[MuseRider]

77. You bet

and my mother made my clothes, my two brothers little suit suits, her dress and my father's suit. My dad would give my mom and me an orchid, one that was too old to sell and would end up behind his store in the dumpster. 😁 💖

[Solly Mack]

78. I was made to wear dresses until about the 5th grade.

I vividly recall my first pair of jeans.

Dresses to school, that is. I had "play" clothes.

Dresses for Easter, as well. Ruffles and crinolines.

I was forced to wear ruffle butt stockings and a crinoline to school once. My teacher took me around to all the other teachers and lifted my dress to show off both the ruffles and the crinoline. Because they found it "too cute" that I dressed that way. This was shortly after one Easter.

I was not amused.

[marlakay]

79. New dress, hat, shoes

Purse and white gloves. Very proper little church girl....

[Codeine]

81. Nonsense. A portion of girls

in certain parts of the country and in certain socioeconomic groups did this.

[JI7]

83. For the non church types i think they just wear a cute sundress

At least that's what i see among others since i am not christian. They do all fun stuff with easter meal, egg hunt etc but no church.

[Raine]

86. Yes and I was one of them

and being a girly girl I loved it!

[cbdo2007]

87. Yep, my 3 little girls did that today.

So much fun. The girls loved it and everyone at church did too.

[llmart]

92. Every little girl...

did not wear her best dress and shoes to church. My parents weren't churchgoers and we were poor, so even if we would have gone to church, there would be no new clothes and shoes for Easter. We did recognize the holiday and got Easter baskets with candy (my favorite part), and Mom would make a nice ham dinner, but no church.

I actually always felt a little "different" since I grew up in a small town and most everyone went to church of one sort or another. However, very few Catholics in our town and no Catholic church, so wasn't exposed to that until I dated a Catholic. I so wanted to wear a mantilla. LOL

[kskiska]

96. Stores had entire departments full of hats

Women wore white gloves, too. I think it was Manpower temp agency that gave an employee who'd attained a certain number of hours a pair of white gloves. This was in the early 60s.