One of the things I remember from my
childhood visits to Sans Souci, where my Grandparents lived, was looking at
some of the photos they had. The album
was a crusty cream colour, and filled with very old photos, mainly of my mum
and aunt as children.
One photo I remember vividly was of my
grandmother dressed as a “Doily”. I can
remember her telling me this, and me not quite understanding what she meant. She had gone to fancy dress party, and had
pinned crocheted doilies she had made all over the dress.
I knew the photo was taken during World War
1, because it was before she started going out with my grandfather, Reg
Powell. He had told me that their first
date was November 11, 1918. It was Armistice
Day, the day World War 1 ended, and he asked her if she would like to go in to
the city to see the celebrations.
The photo ended up in my mother’s
collection, and now I have it (somewhere).
I was recently looking at the Trove website[i]
and I found that the newspaper “St George
Call”, which was the local paper around the Kogarah/Rockdale area at the
time of World War 1 was available and had some article that explained a little
bit more about my grandmother’s Doily Dress.
My grandmother had moved to Sydney when she
was about 14 to live with her sister and brother-in-law. They resided in the Kogarah area. Bessie had completed her schooling and was
sent there to help her sister who had three small children.
Kogarah
School of Arts[ii]
On Wednesday night the 18th of September
1918 a dance was held at the local School of Arts, this was held by the Kogarah
Soldier’s Club, and was a Masquerade Dance.
To quote the St. George Call “The
success of the evening is shown in the takings at the door which amounted to £16,”.
The Amati orchestra supplied the music, and
the M.C. for the evening was a Mr. Sears.
The St. George Call also mentions that Miss
B. Bewes was among those in fancy dress and that she was described as “Weldon’s
Crochet”.
On reading this, my mind immediately went
back to Grandma’s Doily dress, so I did some investigation on Weldon’s Crochet.
From 1875 to 1954 there was a Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal that supplied
dressmaking patterns. This journal was
published by the owners of a pattern company who produced multiple patterns and
various types of Victorian needlework.
Weldon’s
Ladies’ Journal June 1914
Thanks to the glories of the Internet I was
able to look at the magazine and have an idea of what my grandma was reading
and how she came up with the idea of a “Doily Dress”
Weldon’s
crochet patterns
Less than two months after wearing the
Doily dress grandma went out on her first date with my grandfather, and on
January 28, 1922 they were married.
I have no idea if Reg was at the Fancy
Dress dance, but he was a local man who lived in the area, and if it wasn’t
this dance I suspect it was another held in the area.
As I grow older I think a lot of my
grandparents and the little snippets of information they shared with me, and
those who know me will understand how those memories send me off on quests for
more information and detail.
Family stories need to be shared, and I
hope that my grandchildren will have similar memories of the “snippets” I tell
them.
