Wearing ‘Go to meetin’ clothes.

Okie fashion plate.
It took my dad working two jobs in order to outfit my mom with her mostly church fashions. As mentioned my parents lived in a ‘third-world’ community in red dirt Oklahoma before immigrating to California. No electricity, no running water, and no indoor plumbing. All of this was missing before moving to Southern California in the early 1940s.
But things quickly changed once living in East Los Angeles and the fashion center of the Okie settlement on the eastside. My mom began wearing broad brimmed hats and long white gloves to church. My dad put away his plowboy straw hat with bib overalls and found an Indianna Jones-like gray fedora. No more his white shirt and light-colored seersucker pants but a real two-piece gray pinstriped suit. A suit bought brand new at Sears. Not mail order but bought right off the rack. Before I forget, my dad had this horrid looking tie with a livered colored fish prominent on it. No stripes nor patterns. Just an ugly wide-eyed fish against a dark background. And by the way I am almost positive going to church in East L A was the first time my dad had ever worn a suit.
But back to my mom’s couturier. Her fashion was influenced by the other ladies fashion choice at our church in East L A. And we are talking working class 1950s fashion plate. Clothes and accessories from Sears, W T Grant and Bonds. Most of which was located on Whittier Blvd in downtown East L A.
One coat I distinctly remember was a coat my mom wore most of the time, summer or winter. A heavy wool-like coat with an orangish colored large fluffy animal fur collar. Not sure the furs origin. I don’t think it was mink but some other wild animal. Maybe a fox.
Then somehow or some way my mom obtained a real dead fox or some kind of squirrel or rodent and hung it around her neck(head, feet, and tail) and wore it to church. How gross that was. Why would she do that?
Then later on my mom made my dad buy her a blue mink coat. A coat with sections of eyed blue mink on blue leather. A coat necessitating serious winter weather. None the less she rarely wore the coat. Nice looking but in the wrong climate. It would have been fine for someone in Minnesota or Maine.
Now, Even though her foot size measured 9 or 9 and a half, she always bought size 8 shoes. You could see the result of that near the end of her days. Why to women insist on smaller sizes? My mom basically recked her feet.
My dad had two or three long sleeve white dress shirts. Shirts with French cuffs that required cuff-links. Never the less my older sister and her girlfriends thought it cool to wear their dad’s white long sleeve dress shirts. Worn with tails out hanging down past their knees over a pair of old jeans. Certainly, creating their own fashion. Sort of dumb looking.
Then it wasn’t until about 1950 we all at 1318 South Simmons Avenue started wearing pajamas. Yes! Before we just wore our underwear to bed. Yet another fashion change still necessitating my dad to work a second job. Now don’t get me started on my mom’s often change of living room furniture. Blond to French provincial to Danish modern and on and on. And for sure I do not know why on earth my mom insisted on a huge crystal chandelier hung over the dining room table. Must had cost hundreds of dollars. If not a thousand or two. Well, I could go on but won’t. So, have a nice day.