Not long after Aunt Ellie’s funeral, Cousin Katie brought her faded, old plum-colored coat to Mama. “Mr. Blizzard bought this for Aunt Ellie years ago. The material is real good. It won’t fit me. Do you want to make it over for one of your girls?
“I sure do. The cuffs on Kathleen’s coat are over her wrists. I ‘ve been trying to figure out how I could come up with some heavy material. This should do good, if you’re sure you can’t use it.”
That caught my attention. I hated that camphor-smelling old coat. I’d seen skinny, old Aunt Ellie wrapped up head to ankles in that faded old coat, puttering around in the yard or sitting wrapped in it next to the stove on cold days. The front was spotted and the cuffs slick with age and wear. I imagined myself creeping around in that worn-out coat, looking just like Aunt Ellie, my white hair wound in a wild bun, like Aunt Ellie’s. A string of mean kids would be following me, pointing and laughing at the poor, pitiful kid in the raggedy, old dead-lady coat.
“Mama, I don’t want Aunt Ellie’s old coat. The kids at school will laugh at me for wearing an old dead-lady’s coat.”
“Now Kathleen, this material is too good to throw away, and you need a coat. That’s all there is to it. When I’m through making it over, nobody will ever know it’s not ordered from Sears and Roebuck.” She immediately pulled out the catalog to have me choose a style so she could cut a pattern. Glumly. I pointed a coat out, knowing I was defeated.
I pushed the coat from my mind, though periodically, I’d come through to find Mama cutting the fabric, brushing it with cleaning fluid. Though I had no interest in the process, she later told me she cut the coat apart, turned it, cleaned and reblocked, before finally pinning on her custom fitted pattern. Truly, the reverse side of the fabric was a rich rose. Stitching it and the freshly cleaned lining together, Mama polished it off with a new collar. New buttons completed her masterpiece. It looked nothing like Aunt Ellies’s faded old coat. No one would ever recognize it!
I hated it! Mama made me put it on and model it for her and Daddy. I knew better than to complain. On the first cold day, Mama made sure I wore my new, old coat. Ashamed, I rushed to hang it in the cloak room as soon as I got to school. At recess, I hung behind to put my coat on, hoping no one would remark on it. I hid around the corner, hoping to avoid humiliation. At lunch, Berenice and Christine admired my coat in passing, before moving on to a more interesting subject. I was pleased but almost disappointed after I’d thought it so ugly. In truth, it was a very nice coat, cut in a stylish pattern, but you’d never have convinced me. The whole time I wore that hateful coat, I kept waiting for my shameful secret to be discovered.
Beth, your book has been my bedtime read for the past couple of days and I am totally enjoying it, with all the chuckles. I’ll definitely write a review or two after reading it and will try my best to promote it as much as I can.
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Oh thank you. So glad you are enjoying.
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I’m in love with Kathleen’s character as I read the novel. You can’t help but wonder what she’ll be up to next. 🙂 She’s a breath of fresh air. 🙂
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Get Everything Smells Just Like Poke Salad and find out. Widget at right connects you. Spoiler. She’s still kicking up her heels at 88
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Yay! 🙂 I can’t wait to get to know her as she gets older. 🙂 She’s quite the character. 🙂
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She is one of life’s winners.
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That she is. 🙂
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Wonderful story. Children think differently than adults, but in the end it all works out. :o)
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She always hated the coat.
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It figures I’d be wrong, well I’m a mom so there you go….:o)
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The coat was probably made to look beautiful but just knowing that it began as your dead aunts coat put a black mark on it for you.
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This is Mother’s story. She wore the coat but always hated it. My grandmother was an outstanding seamstress. It would have been beautiful.
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My niece couldn’t afford a new school blazer for her teenage daughter, and managed to get one second hand from the school. She hated it, and deliberately put cigarette burns in it so that her mother would have to buy her a new one. My sister forked out in the end (bank of Mum and Dad), but if it had been me, I would have made her wear it a few times for defacing it.
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I would have had to wear it to the end, plus explain cigarette burns!
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Reblogged this on Nutsrok.
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My grandma had a dress she didn’t want and she had it altered to fit me and I loved it?
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Amazing what a difference wanting it makes.
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I, too, thought immediately of Dolly’s coat of many colors ! Great story. ☺
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I loved it when Mother told me!
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Reminds me…many of my childhood friends had a Chesterfield coat (remember them ?) Of course, out of the question for me. But when I had my daughter, I bought her one, at about age 8. She hated it. Wore it twice. I ended up donating it to charity. Go figure !!
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My mother insisted on Saddle shoes, which I hated. She wore them in high school.
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When clothes were on coupons during the 1940’s in England, my mother made me a coat out of an airforce blanket. It was beautifully made, but I hated it because it was scratchy and I knew it was an old blanket 😦
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How many stories like that. I’ll bet your poor mother worked so hard trying to make it right.
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She did – I was just ungrateful.
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I’ll bet we all were most of the time.
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Aw, as kids we create lots of thoughts that never come true. Hugs.
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Don’t want to stand out at all
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Is that a picture of the actual coat?
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No, it was the closest I could come.
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It looks like the coat you described. I wish you still had it. Like Dolly Parton’s coat of many colors. I love your story and your truthful fear of someone finding out about it.
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This story is from Mother’s memoirs of growing up during The Great Depression. It is being edited now, hopefully to be released soon. Mother told us these stories so many times I feel like I lived it. I can almost remember hiding around the school yard corner in it.
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I’m looking forward to her memoirs. You do a great job of sharing these.
You and your mother are amazing story tellers.
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Thanks I will let you know when it comes out.
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