Easter Sunday brings back memories of childhood. My Mother grew up in a coal mining town in southeast Ohio, the only girl in a family of five. If she ever got a “new” dress, it was probably a hand me down from someone in the neighborhood.
She married a man who treasured having a good job and family. He moved from a farm in southeast Ohio and went to night school in the 1920s to earn a steam engineer’s license.
After 10 years of marriage, they had saved $3,000 and built a home just blocks from where they had rented. At that time you had to pay for a house in full – today $3,000 would not even be a down payment. Daddy bought a live Christmas tree and planted it when I was probably three years old. I have a photo of me standing my this tree and I look just precious.
Two girls were born in the 1930s, I’m the oldest and therefore the wisest one, plus I remember the most.
For Easter Mother was proud to see each of her daughters get a new dress – one that she bought in a store. When we were in our early teens, Daddy would buy his wife and daughters a small corsage to wear for the occasion.
Mother would hard boil a dozen eggs and my sister and I had a fun time coloring them in an artificial die that you bought in the store. The package contained pills that you put in a cup of very hot water. It also contained various designs that you could cut out and paste on the eggs.
These were placed on a big platter with a layer of paper shreds that looked like green grass on the dining room table.
Mother never learned to drive so we walked to church if Daddy was working a shift at Firestone Tire. It wasn’t really very far and sat near our grade school.
The church was Firestone Methodist Church and the caretaker, named Hiram, lived in the basement. I know when the ladies had an event at the church, they always made sure leftovers were delivered to him. How he ate otherwise, I have no idea. He did not have a car.
Easter to me is no longer new dresses and corsages and pomp and circumstance. But I treasure the memories of the times when it was very important.
