[Magdalen] Aprons and Hankies.

[Cantor03 at aol.com]

I was filing some pictures this week, and came upon a picture of
hometown ladies at the monthly village bridge club.
 
They must be the rotating kitchen crew because they were wearing
fancy, fluffy aprons with floral designs and matching large hankies
that extended down in an exaggerated fashion from the left breast  pocket.
 
This was routine for women involved there in any kind of food  
making/serving
capacity at the time of the picture: 1947.  Ladies' aid at the  various
denominational churches got some of this, but in the case of my home
village (pop. 1,200) the wearing of fancy aprons and hankies was
most pronounced at the village bridge club.
 
The club consisted of about 50 women of the village middle class  (there 
were no upper class residents of the type known in big cities), and they 
ranged from housewives on up through the various professions.
 
Most importantly, they were mutual friends, and I never once  overheard
my mother gossiping or speaking disparagingly of the bridge club
members or their families.  Something like that is, I suspect, hard  to
find in our modern society.
 
My brother and I were banned to our bedrooms during these
sessions which rotated to our home about every three months.  A  large
home was needed to seat all these ladies and we fit the bill.
 
I recall my mother lamenting a year or so before she died at age 98
that she had outlived them all.  There were no bridge club  members
left but herself from those old glory days.
 
Sic transit gloria mundi.
 
 
David Strang.