Gorgeous dresses and hats and high heeled shoes all smelling of spicy sachet and cedar.
On the rare occasion that Mama needed to get something from that cedar wardrobe, she would sometimes let me try on the hats and clothes. As I look through the decades today, I can't think of a single thing in my childhood that made me happier.
Lace and sheer sleeves on the dresses. Buttons in all shapes and sizes. 1940s hats with veils and nets that came down over your face. Older elaborate hats from the 1920s. Big wide-brimmed Southern Belle hats that made me think of afternoon tea with cookies. High heels to die for. I'd clomp around the house all decked out in the finery, and Mama would laugh, but I didn't care. I loved playing dress up.
All my childhood I couldn't wait until I was big enough to really wear those clothes, but I never grew that big.
My Mama was 5'11" tall barefoot in her prime and she wore a size 11 narrow shoe. If she had been born in my time instead of hers, she could have been a fashion model. Tall and thin and beautiful with milky skin the envy of every woman who saw her and bright green eyes.
The last time I tried on her hats I was a teenager and finished growing. I knew then that I would never be able to wear her dresses or fill her shoes (in more ways than one). But the hats! I loved those hats!
It was in my 20s that I first wondered why Mama had so many beautiful things when she never wore them. There was nowhere to wear such things in Blacksburg, South Carolina. Most of the things were even too fancy for church.
One day in my 30s my Mama took a box out of her old cedar wardrobe that I'd never seen before. It was all the way full of cameos. Gorgeous cameos. Necklaces. Brooches. Pins. Beautiful. Mama asked me if I wanted some of them. I took two. I still have them, and I wear them often. They are beautiful and appear to be from the 1940s. I asked Mama where she got all those cameos, and she told me people used to give her things.
That is when I realized my Mama had a past I knew nothing about. I spent decades trying to get Mama to tell me stories about those dresses and hats and cameos. Where did she wear them? Was it a party? Who was she with? Mama would only ever smile and change the subject. Which means nothing, of course. Mama was a secretive thing. She loved her secrets and took them with her to her grave.
Still, sitting here today thinking about those hats, I wonder. Yes. I wonder. Today those old hats smell of adventure to me! Adventure and mystery, and I can't help but wonder whatever happened to them. I'm guessing they, too, took their secrets to their graves, but I think I will never know for sure. Not in this life.
1920s Cloche Hats
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