Growing Up with a Preacher Man
Rev. William "Lester" Howard (1929-2021)
Mary Eulalie McLean Howard (1933-2021)
My Mom and Her Clothes
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by Carolyn Ann Howard
Click on photos to enlarge
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| Mom in our backyard in Monticello, IN About 1974 Always well-dressed Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection |
I have been thinking about clothes, because I need some. Target used to be my go-to for cute tops, until the pandemic somehow sunk the fashion world and sent it back to the 1800s.
Now, in 2022, it feels like they're trying to dig themselves out of the fashion hole, but I still didn't find any cute tops there yesterday. Instead, I found this:
I don't know where or how my parents learned to dress. My mother was fantastic with colors. Me? Not at all. Nor was my dad, and so my mother would help him pick out what tie went with what suit, and he loved her for it.
Growing up in Monticello, Indiana, my father went to what was called a haberdasher. This was a person who dealt in men's clothes and helped businessmen dress well. Sure, my dad was a pastor, but make no mistake, he considered himself a businessman. Dad had a beautiful fedora that he kept in a hat box when he wasn't wearing it. Now that's saying something. If that man ever wore jeans in his life, I didn't know it. He was always dressed "to the nines," as they say. Suit slacks, button down shirt and tie on casual days, suit coat on not so casual day. When pastors started dressing casually for the church service, he lamented this. His reasoning was that because businessmen are always dressed well, then pastors should too. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
Mom could sew really well, too, so she would help Dad with alterations if needed. And look at that beautiful dress and those shoes on the above 1948 picture of Mom and Dad.
Mom loved clothes, jewelry, shoes, make-up... all the things. She would spend hours sometimes getting herself ready to go somewhere. Everything had to be just right. Just going through pictures of my parents to share here on this blog post, every picture, they are dressed very well.
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| Mom, second to the left, with her siblings. |
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| Around 1977 |
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| Around 2001 |
Unfortunately, growing up, my mother was very strict in what I could and could not wear. I hated being under the pressure. I was already anxious as it were, a bit on the chubby side, and with a total lack of self-confidence. If I found things to wear that I was comfortable with, she would say no. I remember once I had put on an orange pair of pants and an orange shirt to wear to our church's skating party, and she grabbed me and told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn't leaving the house looking like that. We can laugh about it now.
When I was a young girl, she would spend what seemed like forever getting my bow tied on my dress just right for Sunday church. Standing still for however long it took her to get it perfect was harrowing, waiting for her to have it just right. And for what? A bow? Every time when she would untie the bow in exasperation, my spirits would fall.
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| Mom and me at Lincoln State Park I'd say about 1965-66 |
It was such a fight all the time. Mom would drag me every year to Lafayette to shop for school clothes, and I can't stand to shop very long even to this day. We would hunt all morning for clothes to wear, and I hated everything she picked out, and she hated everything I picked out. Then we'd have lunch, and I'd be ready to go home, but I still didn't have any clothes. So, I gave in and let her buy the clothes she wanted me to have, and then I'd wear the same thing over and over again, even though I had perfectly good clothes in my closet. My body image, for one thing, was down the drain. That was a lot of it. But also, she never called me out for not wearing the clothes she had bought for me.
She finally one day took me to Miller's Department Store in Monticello and had a young lady there try to help me with things to wear. The thing about Miller's Department Store is that they didn't like their customers very much. I found a few things on that visit, but we only went once.
Finally at 16, she let me loose. We had just gotten a newfangled general merchandise retailer in our little town called Schultz Department Store - a fancy K-Mart. I was so happy. She gave me money and said "go buy your own clothes." And boy, did I ever. This is one of the first outfits I bought after being given my liberation. It's not so bad, right?
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| The first outfit I bought on my own I've always loved cemeteries My apologies to the Owens family |
Even toward the end, my dad made sure my mom always had good clothes to wear at the nursing home. He would pick them out himself and take them down there, and tell the workers exactly what pants went with what shirt. He also made sure her hair was done by a beautician every week.
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| Mom at the nursing home, December 2020 |
My father's impeccable dress may have done him some disservice at the end. I was trying my hardest to get people to see that he needed help, and no one would listen, including my dad. He still was able to dress well, and he was in denial that he needed help. Because he played everything off, so did everyone else, no matter how loud I was yelling to the contrary. It was too late by the time he realized he needed help. We were able to get him into the nursing home, but it was too late to make him well again.
In the end, Mom passed just months after Dad, so we decided to brand their funeral pics by using this one from 1976. I'm not sure why Dad is cut off a bit in this one. They are fully centered in the original. I loved that tree behind them - a sassafras that was in our front yard at Monticello. But this picture epitomizes my parents and their impeccable dress. A fitting tribute, I thought, to their end of life.
