52 Weeks of Photos 23/2022 Dress Up

Question

This week's 52 Weeks of Photos sharing theme: Dress Up

To participate, simply:

1. Choose a family photo that fits this week's theme.
2. Add it to this week's free-space gallery.
3. Reply with an answer below to let us know which photo you're sharing. If you want to include the photo but don't know how, click here.

The photo you share might be featured on the WikiTree home page and in our social media channels.

If you use a social network (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) you might want to share your photo there as well. This can be a great way to involve more family members. Many people love seeing old family photos. Be sure to add #52weeksofphotos and #wikitree to your post.

It is requested that no "best answer" stars be given to any photo, as they are all great pictures without exception and none should be preferred over the other.

Answer 1

I've added this photo before but I don't think it was in the 52 Weeks of Photos.  Forgive me if I'm in error.  It's a tin type image from 1876 of my father's great aunts, Kate and Charlotte Bartlett and they have clearly dressed up for their photo. Scratched on the back is this: "O to call back the days that are not."  Suggestions of what that might have meant are welcomed. 

Comments

It could mean a "youth is fleeting" type of statement. It's a great picture of two young ladies in beautiful dresses!

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Thank you, John. Yes, youth is fleeting and there are so many products on the market to hopefully lengthen the fleeting.

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What a Treasure you have Pat, I can't believe the clarity and detail of something this old.

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Thank you, Marty.  Yes, a 146-year-old metal picture. Both ladies died in the 1930s as old women.

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Wow, Pat! What an amazing photograph! And such lovely ladies! Thank you for sharing it.

FWIW, the line is from a poem by English poet and novelist Dinah Maria (Mulock) Craik. It was set to music by composer Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame). Apparently the poem was titled "Too Late," but as a song it was called "Tender and True." The song was published in 1874, so just a couple of years before the photo. The poem is here. I don't grasp the connection between the poem and the photo, though. The poem is the words of a woman regretfully grieving the death of her lover named Douglas. But maybe the line on the back was quoted out of that context--more like the "youth is fleeting" sense you were suggesting.

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Wow, Lloyd, thank you so much for this!  For sure it was the line from the poem.  These ladies liked poetry.  I have a volume 1908 of Sir Walter Scott poetry given by Kate to Charlotte as a Christmas gift.  Charlotte's handwriting is not as skilled as Kate's, the school teacher.  So I pried the photo out of the scrapbook to see the handwriting again on the back.  "O to call back the days that are not" looks more like Charlotte, the older, prettier sister.  She would be 28 or 29 in this photo and married Philip Palmer in 1881, in her 30s. Could there have been an earlier love who died or left her?  I'd say yes. Thank you again for your great detective work.

Answer 2

This is a 1952 photo of me and my three neighborhood friends doing our favorite thing---playing "Dress Up''. Left to right: JoAnn, me, Peggy and Jane Anne. I am the oldest by two to three years.

Comments

Great picture, Alexis! It looks like you kids are having a blast!

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Another great photo Alexis! Looks like you're all having a great time.

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Happy memories, Alexis.  We loved playing Dress Up too.

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John, thank you for your comment. Yes, we had great fun, and Peggy and JoAnn and I still stay in contact.

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Marty, thank you for your comment. JoAnn is the one that actually saved this photo.

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Pat, I remember that we especially had fun with some old nightgowns. Glad you have Dress Up memories too.

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What a cute photo of you girls, Alexis! I'm glad someone interpreted "Dress Up" in this sense. Fun to see. Thanks for sharing.

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Lloyd, thank you for the nice comment.

Answer 3

This is a photo of my great grandmother , Pamelia Evelyn Galloway Denton taken in the early 1900's in Quebeck, White county, Tennessee, USA , she made the dress as told to me by one of my aunts, 

Comments

Many of the women in North America in this time period made their own clothes, Janine.  I can see your great grandmother was very skilled.

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Great Picture Janine, Cant imagine how long it would take to make something so intricate at that time

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Thank you for the lovely comments, from what I was told she was a very good seamstress, she passed away a few years before I was born so I never got to know her but thru my mother, and her siblings, I did not inherit her skill, my mother did thou, my mother was able to figure out to make just about anything, she made backpacks,sleeping bags, most of my clothles, costumes etc...

Answer 4

Since I don't have any photos of any of my ancestors wearing cool/unusual outfits, here's a photo of me in my reproduction 1885 walking dress taken in front of the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Yes, I made it.

Comments

Outstanding job on your dress! You captured the era perfectly!

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Beautiful, Dorothy.  What materials did you use?

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You are quite the seamstress Dorothy! Thank You for sharing these.

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Thanks, Pat.  They grey is silk taffeta. The burgundy is a synthetic jacquard that's very close in hand to a taffeta.

Answer 5

This photo is of my great grandparents, John and Rosie Vaskie, their oldest sons are L to R John and Albert. My grandfather, Michael, is sitting on Rosie's lap. I figure this picture is from around 1920, since Grandpa was born in 1917. Great grandpa John was a coal miner in southern IL, and a Hungarian immigrant. I am sure these clothes were their Sunday best. 

Comments

Great photo, John.  Although they are in front of their home I can picture them going to church in these clothes.  And it is a change to see a coal miner in a suit.

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Great photo John, Thanks!

It seems we have something in common. My Great Grands were Hungarian immigrants that lived in Illinois as well.

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What a good looking family! They seem familiar in some way, and they are all really handsomely dressed.

Answer 6

Dressing up a little sister is great fun. This picture was taken in early 1962, I can date it by the construction going on in the background. This sister is the middle child of the family 3 older siblings and 3 younger siblings, though at the time this picture was taken she was the youngest. 

After we-(myself and the sister just 16 months younger than me)-finished the costuming, we insisted my dad take this picture. The frilly petticoat was my mothers, I think the scarf was my grandmothers, the roses look artificial no idea where they came from. 

The blanket maybe from the car. The chair was just an ordinary kitchen chair with a pillow for the 'princess' to sit on. 

Comments

Great photo M. Looks like your sister was well pleased with her outfit.

Answer 7

This is my Grandparents with my Aunt Kathleen about 1920 in Canton, OH.   It is from my mother's photo album.

Comments

Great outfits, and I  the hats!

Answer 8

My Uncle, Harry Hills. dressed up for his grandfather to take his photo, in London, England 1903

Comments

I like his hat, Christine, he wears it well.....he looks smart all dressed up!

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What a sweet little mini sailor! A wonderful picture!

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What a lovely, and nicely posed photo of your uncle, Christine. Thanks for sharing it. So his grandfather had a photo studio? Did I understand that correctly?

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Way too cute! I don't know if photographer's business cards or something else. Whatever the term is, the ones I have seen have all been dynamite!

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Yes, that's right his grandfather was a photographer, and when the first 3 or 4 children were young they all lived in a house adjoining the studio. There were eleven children altogether but their grandfather emigrated to Australia in 1911, and his daughter, my grandmother, took over the business for a few years.

Answer 9

1919, Aunt Norah, my father's sister.....the question might be, did she dress up, or is this normal attire?                                  

Comments

I looked at some pictures of "girls in British Columbia 1920"s" and did not see anyone dressed like that. It might be some sort of ethnic costume, and you know her ethnic background, so you could look up similar pictures. My guess is that she was dressed for some sort of play or program, especially as she seems posed in front of a photographer's background.

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She looks posed John so my guess is dress-up. Are the braids part of the costume too? that looks like a lot of hair to maintain.

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Here's a picture of my grandfather's sister Irene Auger. She is dressed in her Campfire Girl outfit, and the braids are indeed her own hair. 

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Joyce, Norah's family moved back to England prior to WWI to put my father through the Navel Academy and lived at Worton House in Oxfordshire. The dress is similar to the one, her mother was wearing, in an 1880's photo, across the channel, at a picnic in Potsdam, Germany, if not the same dress.  PS  The fringe on the bottom of Irene's dress reminds me of the same on Kathy's legging moccasins.

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Marty, I have other photos of Norah, with her long hair.....she went on to marry Rupert, a British spy, and would send me stamps from her travels in South Africa and Ceylon.

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Interesting photo, John. I've only ever seen costumes like this on women in German (or Scandinavian) folk dancing groups. In that context, it was certainly "dress-up" and not normal attire, of course. That her mother wore the same or a similar costume at a picnic in Germany seems to support the idea that it is German, maybe. But even in the 1880s, I don't imagine it was typical attire for a picnic in Germany... unless it was Oktoberfest or something.

As for the hair, I read somewhere recently that up until the 1920s, most women (in England/Canada/the US anyway) had very long hair. You never knew it was long because it was typically worn "up" on the top or back of the head. If that is true, Norah's hair length was probably typical for the time.

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Lloyd, Norah's grandmother's cousin was Ambassador to Germany and I have a tinplate photo of her with German officers.

Answer 10

My grandfather's sister Alice Auger, 1915

Comments

Joyce, I studied Alice's hat, then went off and left her standing there, for over a day, while I went on a marathon, studying a close DNA cousin in Ontario, with a branch extending to Peter Van De Bogart, in New York.....when I got back Alice was still looking out from under her hat, asking me, "well, did you find what you're looking for?"

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I love when the write the date on the edge.

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Even better, Marty, someone wrote "Alice" on the back. The four Auger sisters looked very much alike. Thanks for the comment.

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Nice photo of Alice, Joyce. There are some interesting similarities between her hat and the one my great aunt is wearing in the photo I shared this week. Not surprising, I guess, since both photos were taken in the same era.

Answer 11

I spent my one old photo of children playing "dress-up" a few weeks back on the "Favorite Toy" theme. So (seemingly like many here) I am going with an adult dressing up rather than children playing.

This is my great aunt Bessie Hammell in what appears to be a studio photo. I believe it was taken about 1910 in Albany, Oregon.

I cannot be certain, but I believe Bessie's mother (my great grandmother) Sarah Hammell made this outfit. She was working as a dressmaker out of her home during this time. I know almost nothing about the history of fashion, but I believe this outfit reflects the Edwardian style that displaced the much more staid Victorian style that held sway up through the first decade or so of the 1900s. This rather flamboyant outfit would have been unthinkable during the Victorian era, I imagine.

Comments

A beautiful photograph, and, it seems to have captured a pensive look.

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Thank you for the comment and the great observation, John.

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Elegant outfit, and elegant lady Lloyd Thank You for sharing.

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Thank you, Marty. Very kind.

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Lloyd, you always come up with a fabulous photo. Bessie is gorgeous and the hat is magnificent!

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A previous photo-sharing challenge was "hat." I haven't seen one for "umbrellas."

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Thank you so much for your kind and generous comment, Alexis. I agree, the hat really is quite something!

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@Joyce: This would have been a good one for "hat," for sure. An "umbrella" photo sharing theme would be fun. I don't know whether it might be a bit too specific, though. I can think of some photos I have that would work well with "umbrella," though (besides this one). Thanks a lot for the comment.

Answer 12

My mom threw yearly Halloween Parties on the last Saturday before Halloween. They were usually themed, and the theme of 2003 was "M*A*S*H". From left to right is my mother Amy, my aunt Kelly, and our family friend Jeanne. We had some fun times at those parties!

Comments

Oh My!!