Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman Page A

gown.
     
    I wore a big pink bow in my hair.
     

     
    Easter Sunday outfit. Coral wool suit with pleated skirt. White short-sleeved sharkskin blouse with drawstring neck.
     
    We always got a new Easter outfit. Easter Sunday, we’d find a bench in front of Central Park, at around 65th Street, and watch the people walk up and down Fifth Avenue in their holiday outfits.
     

     
    A variety of braided hairdos: Loops. Crown. “Hamburgers” over the ears.
     

     
    We wore short, full jackets in springtime, which we called “toppers.”
     
    This was one I had in coral.
     

     
    A new fabric was introduced called “tubular jersey” and my mother made matching dresses for my sister and me.
     
    She crocheted a black wool border around the neck and sleeves.
     

     
    My mother made this forest-green wool jersey dress embroidered with red cherries for my sister.
     
    My sister was tall and had a voluptuous figure. Her name was Blossom, but everyone called her “Tootsie” except my grandfather. He called her “the pig” and he called me “the monkey.” Everybody else called me “Gingy” because I was born with ginger-colored hair. We called my grandfather “Pop.”
     
    Later, when Tootsie married Shel, Shel didn’t like her names and called her “Bonnie.”
     
    My sister had long, red fingernails and loved Frank Sinatra. She cut out pictures of “Frankie” from movie magazines
(Photoplay, Silver Screen, Screen Gems)
and taped them to the walls of the bedroom we shared. Whenever we had a fight, I would try to tear the pictures off the walls and she would scratch my arms with her nails.
     
    I bit my nails and they were very ugly.
     

     
    My mother made this sexy red dress for my sister. It had a keyhole neckline and peplum and was accented with hand-sewn gold sequins.
     
    Peplums were very popular in those days.
     
    Sewing on the sequins was tedious work. My mother also sewed multicolored sequins on printed silk scarfs, which we’d give to our teachers for Christmas. Sometimes we gave them fancy soap or flowered handkerchiefs instead.
     

     
    Black faille dress with a shocking-pink silk rose at the waist.
     
    This was one of the few dresses my mother didn’t make. She bought it for my sister on sale at Henri Bendel’s on West 57th Street.
     
    My sister wore it when Shel came back from the army before they got engaged.
     
    She bought another black dress when Shel was wooing her. Note illusion sweetheart neckline.
     

     
    My mother made this gorgeous green taffeta strapless gown for my sister to wear to our cousin’s wedding.
     
    Note silk flowers (sewn on elastic band) worn around upper arms. The skirt was extravagantly full.
     

     
    My mother was a large, handsome woman who didn’t wear fancy clothes, maybe because we couldn’t afford them. Once my grandmother surprised her with a silver fox stole (for her birthday or Mother’s Day, I can’t remember which). My mother tried it on but never wore it after that day.
     
    She usually wore a dark print dress and brown shoes with a buckle. For a while she worked as a nurse’s aide and would wear a blue-gray jumper over a white blouse. But she never had the kind of cape the nurses had in paper-doll books.
     
    Even though she was a Brownie leader, she never got a Brownie leader’s uniform. It was too expensive.
     
    She had a premature white streak in the front of her hair. She never wore make-up, only sometimes a little lipstick that she would put on without looking in the mirror and then make even by pressing her lips together.
     
    She wore glasses. Her face had a beautiful shape and her eyes were hazel.
     

     
    The spring after my mother died, my father took me to B. Altman’s department store on Fifth Avenue to buy a dress for my thirteenth birthday.
     
    I selected two navy-blue dresses (see this page and next). This one had a removable cape collar. Each dress was very expensive, about forty-four dollars.
     
    I wore one of them to the