Easter Dress Parade

Easter is such a special time in the Christian's life. In my home growing up, we had fun with eggs and hunts and chocolate candy in our baskets. It was like Christmas, though, in that we knew there were no such things as Santa or the Easter bunny. We were focused on Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection.

I've mentioned before that we were a large family serving small churches with smaller salaries. But somehow we always managed to get new clothes for Easter. I have a very fond memory of getting up very early on Easter Sunday morning to go to the sunrise service - which was always held inside the church instead of our watching the sun actually rise. My sis and I always wore our Easter dresses from the year before to that service, then went home and changed into our spanking new clothes.

It was fun finding all of these pictures chronicling our Easter parade of dresses.

This was in the yard of our tiny little house in Batesville, Arkansas. I'm quite certain Mom made these little organdy dresses for us. I think they were pale blue.

We loved these circle skirt dresses - taken on the front steps of our first house in Heber Springs, Arkansas.




I sure wish these were colored pictures!

I loved these red and white striped "store-bought" taffeta dresses, complete with flower bands on our heads, and straw bags.

Being the pastor's kids had some perks - this particular year a lady in our church had a new fancy sewing machine that she wanted to try out on us. She bought us this gorgeous fabric and embellished the dresses with all sorts of fancy stitching. This picture was taken at my youngest brother's dedication service.

The next year somebody else offered to make our dresses. Based on the year before, we were excited. Unfortunately, these didn't turn out quite so well. For one thing she (and I'm glad I don't remember who it was) never came over to fit us. She apparently guestimated our sizes. When the dresses arrived, we were not excited about the color (a dark turquoise), the fabric, the big bows, or the fact that the dresses had darts when none were needed yet! But of course we had to wear them. Can you tell by our faces how thrilled we were??

Mom made these "walking suits" this year. Mine was lavender plaid and I was pleased with it. Don't you love the straw purse? And the pillbox hat (ala Jackie Kennedy) and the gloves --

This year our dresses were much simpler than other years - this one was pale yellow - gloves, but no hat. Much more casual.

I really had a thing for lavender, it seems. I loved this dress, matching hat and shoes - wish you could see them.




This was fondly (I think) called my "Abe Lincoln" look by my brothers. I was 5'10" tall, but thought nothing of wearing 3-inch spikes with pointed toes. The shoes to this outfit were too small, but I bought them because they were red, white, and blue and I had to have them to complete the ensemble. I suffered, but thought it was worth it! Not to mention the 6-inch-high hat - oh, my goodness - I really thought I was something! I'm not really that much taller than everyone - the angle is really strange - but I was really tall and didn't care. I wonder where I got the money to put together this outfit.

That was the last Easter picture in my mom's album - I enjoyed my trip down Easter memory lane very much. I hope you did, too!