Something Blue

So it turns out I'm not the only one with happy memories of going through boxes and bags from Nanny's closet and discovering old clothes with Grammy Rivers. My cousin Tina, who found Nanny's portrait dress after we dismantled the closet, has fond memories of the happiness she and Grammy shared when they realized what it was. Apparently it was in an old bag, and since Grammy was mostly blind, she had thought it was a set of crusty old curtains. More recently, Tina's discovery skills struck again as she and my mother stumbled on this blue ensemble when they were helping clean out Grammy's house. This dress is from about the same time period as the portrait, c. 1900-1908. I'd never seen this one before though, despite all of my explorations, which is a testament to the unknown depths of the things stashed away at Grammy's house. Sadly, some mice found this dress before we did. They had nibbled on the hem and a cuff and are probably responsible for some staining on the skirt. The rest is in excellent shape though, and as is often the case with dresses from Grammy's, we have extra fabric if we want to repair it. The extra material suggests that this is either a "Nanny original," or it was made by Nanny's mother. 

These images show off the fabric print and trim. The extra fabric is shown slung over the shoulder on the right.  I am sure that Nanny's sewing skills are the reason we still have so many of her dresses. A garment like this includes a lot of yardage, and no seamstress worth her salt throws out that much fabric. Nanny altered a number of dresses instead of throwing them out. I'm grateful that she never got around to dismantling this one though; it is completely original.

The ensemble has two pieces, a skirt and separate bodice with an unlined black lace neckline. I think it also would have been worn with some kind of waist-cinching belt and a separate high collar.The fabric is either silk or highly-polished cotton with black velvet trim. The skirt is slightly trained with a double row of ruffles at the hem. A linen lining with central hooks and eyes is sewn into the bodice. 

The bodice is gathered to create the tummy poof that was so popular in the early 20th-century. The lining was form- fitting though, to help maintain the overall structure of the look. The lining closes at front with hooks and eyes, while the outer bodice hooks at the side and shoulder with hooks and thread loops. The bodice detail at right shows the pin tucks on the sleeve and the tight cuff outlined in black velvet ribbon to give it the look of a belt.

The sleeves have a series of pin tucks that stop above the wrist to create a flare before they end in tight cuffs. This is the kind of detail that seems to be characteristic of Nanny's sewing, especially for the dresses she made in the 1920s and 1930s. She never seemed to skimp on the detailed stitching, even though she preferred busy prints that obscured all that hard work. I try to take pictures of these details, which is why I have so many shots of this dress. The photos don't show off all of that detail though, especially if you get the whole front and back in the image as shown below, so it's even more striking in person. Many thanks to Tina and my mom for rescuing this so that we can all enjoy it as a gorgeous example of our ancestor's taste and sewing skills.  

  

Document and Distribute!

Our makeshift documentation technique: lay out each 

garment on the bed with a numbered post-it, develop 

film, and scan photos.

In a large family with a lot of heirlooms, I’ve found that documenting what is there and distributing that information to relatives is well worth the effort. In 2000, I traveled to Maine after college graduation and decided that I’d like to revisit some of the old family dresses I had seen over a decade earlier as a child exploring a closet full of mysteries with my Grammy (story here). This time I was armed with a camera, acid-free tissue, and a bit more knowledge about what I was looking at. 

With help from Grammy and a friend, we got the dresses out and laid them on a bed one-by-one for photography. I put a numbered post-it on the bed with each piece before taking the pictures so that later I could make a spreadsheet of information to go with each garment. As we finished, we carefully refolded the dresses and packed them away with acid-free tissue. They were still in trunks and suitcases, not exactly archival quality storage, but at least the tissue helped a little.

After I developed the pictures we took that day, they sat around in several apartments as I went through grad school, got a job, got married, got another job… It was always one of those things I’d get to “eventually.” By the time I finally got motivated to put the photos together into a scrapbook, about five years had passed since I’d actually seen the dresses. That was problematic because I wanted to compile a spreadsheet with information about them, but I didn’t remember as much as I could have about the materials used, the nature of the trims, etc. Still, I assembled a scrapbook with my best guesses about the age and description of each garment, and I took the book to Grammy’s where all of her visitors could see it. Then I scanned each photo and made CDs with images and the spreadsheet for distribution to the family.

After we took pictures, we packed the dresses in trunks 
and suitcases with acid-free tissue. They stayed there 
tucked away in Nanny's closet until 2011 when we had 
to start removing the antiques from Grammy's house.

 I made some mistakes in the book, but the great thing about it is that the family helped me add information and make corrections. For example, one of the dresses was Nanny’s wedding dress. I had gotten the year wrong, as well as the list of aunts who had worn the dress in their weddings. It was easily corrected, and gave my aunts a chance to educate me about our family's history.

For me, the project was fun because it suited my interests perfectly, but I think my family was also grateful because there were things in the book they’d never seen before, and if they had seen the dresses, it sparked happy memories for them about dress-up or the exploration of the “special dresses”.

Now I am grateful that I did the book because it has eased some of the angst of deciding who inherits each garment now that Grammy has passed. We decided to keep the collection together for now, but in order to determine who gets to decide the ultimate disposition of each item, who pays to replace tissue and buy garment boxes, and who can give the okay to use the dresses for education or dress-up, we are determining individual ownership and tracking who owns what on the spreadsheet I generated years ago. The only regret I have is that I didn't document everything. Recent months have taught me that there were a LOT more articles of clothing in that house than I was aware of.  

Who would throw out a broken iron? Not my 
family, apparently.

The rest of the family heirlooms have a similar story. Some were on everyone’s radar, but most items were tucked away in closets, under piles of clutter, or in unlabeled boxes. The distribution of the estate has therefore been a messy process. Many siblings with many different opinions can’t decide by committee who gets every last object; there’s simply too much stuff. Some of it is loaded with sentimental value and some has monetary value, but most would probably have value only to specific niche collectors. For example, behold the collection of irons that turned up.

Thus the importance of the ‘document and distribute’ mantra. If someone has expertise with a specific group of heirlooms, they should get it out there! When family members have knowledge that goes beyond emotional attachments, they can feel more confident that they aren't making poor decisions about what they really want to keep and what they can let go. 

Nanny's Closet

My great grandmother died about a year before I was born, but she was still very much a presence in the family when I was growing up. Pictures of Nanny were prominently displayed at my grandmother’s house, and her stuff was everywhere. In many ways, Nanny was to me what the Disney princesses are to today’s little girls. She was this sort of unreal character who had beautiful, old, mysterious things and wore the most amazing dresses I ever saw.  Even her name sounded worthy of old English gentry: Georgiana Mayhew Duncan Seavey.

Georgiana Mayhew Duncan, or "Nanny" as she is known in our family. This image was taken in 1906

just after she graduated from La Salle University. She was 21. This dress is one of the ones she stored

away in a closet near her room when she moved in with her oldest daughter's family in the 1940s. 

So can you imagine my enthusiasm when I was given the opportunity to dig around in the closet that held all of Nanny’s oldest dresses and nice things? Grammy Rivers had just helped me start collecting antique purses (story here), and she thought that there might be some purses in the closet that Nanny, her mother, had used until she died in 1976. For the most part, this closet had been left alone since Nanny died. The Christmas things were piled high right inside the door, so its depths had not been accessible. I had already decided by this time that I wanted to be an archaeologist, so excavating the depths of a large closet full of family heirlooms was like blisspalooza for me. I vowed to devote whatever vacation time I had to Grammy’s offer to go through the closet together.

Nanny's closet as it appeared in October 2011. It's actually less crowded here

than it had been in the late 1980s, but I didn't take pictures back then.

By the end of the first hour we had completely trashed Nanny’s old bedroom with piles of things we had to get out of the way, and we successfully reached the first trunk. There was a lot of dust, dirt, rodent excrement, and suspicious debris, but I was a kid who had never read up on biohazards, and at the age of 11 or 12, I had little guilt about ignoring messes (like complete mouse skeletons) that Grammy was too blind to see. I was just excited to be there, and the discovery of really old clothes and purses—the only things I really cared much about at the time—was about to begin.

There was too much stuff for me to remember all of it, but here’s a sample: piles of gently used wrapping paper, a plastic garment case full of circa 1960s coats and dresses, suitcases full of older dresses, circa 1850-1925, hats-a-plenty, furs, a pitcher and basin in its original shipping container, complete with mouse nest inside, a box of wooden jigsaw puzzles, really old photo negatives rolled up with age, a trunk full of linens, shawls, and newspapers, a box of Japanese parasols, a folding lap desk full of letters, and a huge trunk full of fabric scraps. And that barely represented a fraction of what was there. We didn’t even get to about half of the boxes in the closet, but still, it was more memorable even than the Milli Vanilli concert I went to that year!

The trunks in Nanny's closet were in the same place in 2011 as they had 

been when I first went though the closet with Grammy Rivers. On the right 

are hanging bags with furs in them, and the shelf in the back has boxes 

with puzzles, letters, and old photos.

A box of Japanese parasols.

A major highlight of the treasure hunt for me was a chance to try on the most amazing green dress. The bodice was so tight that I had to take short shallow breaths and I could barely move (and it wasn’t just because I was unknowingly wearing it backwards). Also, the skirt was missing the crinoline it needed to reach the diameter it was intended to have, so it dragged on the floor and I accidentally stepped on the hem a couple of times. I am ashamed to admit that I heard it rip. It’s hard not to be haunted by that now that I know so much more about the age and fragile condition of the dress. I’m still grateful that I tried it on though; had I waited even one more year, I would probably have outgrown it or developed some scruples about using an 1850s gown to fulfill my dress-up fantasies. The memories mean so much to me though, that even my current curatorial ethics can’t convince me that the minor rips weren’t worth it.

Extreme dress-up aside, Grammy and I also had the pleasure of finding what we were originally looking for: several antique purses. Most of them were ones that Grammy had never seen before, meaning that they had probably belonged to her mother or grandmother before she was born in 1912. Grammy gave them to me for my collection, and I have cherished them ever since. I’ll devote a whole blog entry to those later.

This 1850s dress boasted a pagoda sleeve and slightly pointed bodice, but  you can't tell since I put it 

on backwards. How was I supposed to know? The skirt suffers a bit without a crinoline, but I was still 

ever so happy.

Purses were no longer enough for me though. After this foray into Nanny’s closet I decided that antique dresses were too irresistible to admire only on family visits, and I resolved to start my own collection of those as well. By the time I entered Jr. High, I was saving my allowance for antique shows. Now, as an adult, I sometimes I wonder how much money I’d have in my IRA if I had saved up instead of investing in my costume collection. But I have no regrets. My collection may not pay for my retirement, but the enjoyment I get from it is priceless.

It Started with a Purse and my Grammy

Charlotte Seavey Rivers (1912-2011). 
Shown here in 1929 at age 17. 

About a month after I started this blog, my grandmother, Charlotte Seavey Rivers, passed away. She was 99. My commitment to this blog increased exponentially at that point, but turning it into the resource I need it to be will be daunting. The provenance of much of my collection, and in fact, my reason for having a collection at all, is tied to Grammy Rivers. Her passing sparked a need to reorganize my house, my closet, my collections, and my thoughts about family, old clothes, family, hoarding, and family. All are tied up in one big tangled yarn ball at the intersection of my career, my beloved hobbies, and my relationships with people I love. If you can picture that tangle of yarn, comprised of three colors-- my collections, family heirlooms, and my job-- then picture this blog as snippets that I have freed as I have time to sit and pick through the jumble.

For this entry, I’m concentrating on finding the beginning of one strand: my collections. Here’s how it all started with a purse, a pocket obsession, and a purchase.

Shopping with Grammy

In the late 1980s, before there was such a thing as eBay, antique dealers used to set up booths at the mall from time to time. When I was in 5^th or 6^th grade in Fulton, New York, Grammy Rivers was visiting us from Maine when our family decided to hit the local mall. There was an antique show going on, and Grammy and I split off to look at the booths while the rest of the family did their shopping. I had a coin collection, and usually at least one booth featured coins, so I brought my cash.

While my memory of the day is fuzzy, here’s what I remember vividly: One booth had two purses hanging from a shelf, one smaller than the other. Both were tapestry purses, both had interesting decorations on the frame, one was $15.00, the other was $20.00, and I WANTED ONE. I actually circled the mall twice, stopping each time to handle these beauties. Finally, I asked the dealer if he could come down on the price and he complied: $11.00 for the little purse and $15 for the big one.

Here it is: the purse that caught my tween eye.

I loved the fantasy castle scene, the enamel

work on the frame, and what I found inside... 

I had always had a thing for wallets and purses with a lot of pockets. Whether a hand-me-down of an old purse from my mom or a yard sale find, I measured the value of the accessory by the pocket count. Which is weird, because at that age I had pretty much no need whatsoever for a wallet or a purse. I only made money through a small allowance and the rule that I could keep any change I found around the house (except for quarters). When I did have something important enough to store deep in the recess of a hidden pocket, I usually forgot it was there. Still, I was a kid and ‘need’ wasn’t really factoring into my decisions. I was probably thinking something like: “Neat. Want. Pretty.” Given my mantra “more pockets are better” I was naturally drawn to the larger tapestry purse because it had the coolest feature; a mini-purse within the purse! But sadly, I had only $12.00. It was frustrating, but at least I could afford the little one.

A mini purse INSIDE the purse. Brilliant!

Grammy Rivers had witnessed my interest and torment as I weighed my options; I had dragged her back to the booth twice, after all. And then she did something I totally didn’t expect; she offered me $3.00 so that I could get the BIG purse. I was in awe. The idea that my Grammy was even a participant in the market economy hadn’t ever really occurred to me. She grew and canned a lot of her own food, she was mostly blind and couldn’t drive, and as a retired mother of ten and grandmother of 25-ish (I seriously don’t know) she wasn’t someone who threw money around. In my mentalverse, cash from Grammy: A) came from a birthday card via mail, and B) never exceeded $5.00. This was like getting an unexpected raise for a job I didn’t do from a person I didn’t ever think of as ever even having touched a dollar bill. I was so joyful. Grammy had helped me obtain a completely impractical but fascinating antique AND she had expanded my view of her from just “my Grammy” to “member of society at large.”

The $2.00 yard sale find that brought my purse
count up to two: an official "collection."

Not long thereafter, I found an adorable little embroidered purse with an Asian scene on it for $2.00 at a yard sale and bought it. The clouds parted, the sunbeams broke through, and lo, a collection was born! I added to my ‘purse drawer’ with all of the enthusiasm my child-sized budget allowed, while my other collections- coins, pretty rocks, seashells, and matchbox cars -were relegated to storage in my closet.

Most importantly, however, Grammy and I bonded over this new interest that she had helped me pursue. She saw how much I loved these old purses, and old things in general, and boy did she ever have access to old things! We were set on a course that led to Nanny’s closet, but that is a story best left for another post…