Easter Memories

Our house on Virginia Avenue still holds so many memories for me and for others as well. All I have to do is look at this picture and I'm back in South Gate. I can see every room perfectly and feel the warmth of it's safety within. I celebrated eighteen Easter Sundays in this house. I'd like to tell you about just a few of them.

My parents bedroom had one small closet which was used exclusively for my father's clothes. He actually had more clothes than my mother which isn't surprising if you knew my dad. He was a bit of a dapper dude and insisted on always being well-presented. His closet was full of suits and ties and shirts, which he wore to his office daily. There was also a small dresser inside the closet.

My mother used the small coat closet in our dining room as her closet. She had her shoeboxes on the top shelf and her dresses hanging from left to right on the bar below. Bernice did not wear pants. It was always dresses. I have come across only three old photos of her as a young woman wearing pants. This was actually shocking to see because I never saw her in anything other than dresses my entire life. My mother's closet usually held several evening dresses and the rest were her daily wear. There was a mink coat that also lived inside her closet and as a kid I use to sneak inside and pet it. I always felt sorry for it even though I wasn't quite sure what a mink was but I was pretty sure it should have been a pet and not a coat. 

The picture above was my second Easter. I was a bit over a year old and already introduced to what would become a wonderful tradition and memory. It started in my mother's closet. For years, just a week or so before Easter, my mother would place boxes for Kelly and I on her closet shelf. Easter morning, the boxes would be brought down from the closet and placed on the dining room table. My mother would present them to us and inside would be our Easter dress, shoes, socks, hat and purse. Some years we would even get new gloves. I can still remember the thrill of seeing what was inside those boxes. 

This is Easter 1966. We're in our new Easter outfits, just home from church at St. Helen's. The hats were soft and fuzzy just like our matching purses. I can remember loving this outfit and being happy with all the treats we had just received. Our dad is taking pictures of us as he always did but what we didn't know was that this was part of the distraction they had planned. It wasn't but minutes before our big Easter surprise arrived.

When Kel and I saw the bunny our parents had bought for us, we had very different reactions. Kelly was happily petting him, smiling, while I was crying because I was so happy. Animals can still have that effect on me. I just love them and can't help myself, so sometimes I cry. My mother wrote on the back of the photo that my response was, "I love him" and that I wanted to name him Mr. Easter a Go Go. And yes, that's what we named him. Mr. Easter, as we called him for short, was already a full grown bunny boy and it turns out my mother had rescued him from someone that was going to eat him. Mr. Easter was the first bunny she would rescue but not the last one. I loved Mr. Easter from the get-go and he quickly learned having little girls love him wasn't a bad gig for a full grown bunny boy. We would dress him in doll clothes and get him all snuggled down in our doll stroller. Then Kel and I and often Patty, would push our stroller around the block to Lloyds, our neighborhood market. We'd each have a few pennies that would buy us tiny hot dog shaped bubblegum and Lloyd would have carrot tops saved for Mr. Easter. We'd collect our goodies and head back home with our full grown "baby"  bunny boy happily munching his greens in his stroller.

Easter 1967, we wore matching dresses and hats and had little straw purses. My mother went through a time of wanting us to always match. Kelly and I would look back at these pictures and laugh when we were older but truthfully, I love this picture of us. When I see Kel smiling her Martha Raye smile and hanging onto me, it's how I always picture her, even now. 

This was taken in 1968. There were no matching dresses or hats or purses this year. Kelly was seven and I was ten and we were spending Easter on the ranch with Aunt Meta and Uncle Lauren. This was taken Easter morning in our cousin Maureen's bedroom. No matter where we were, the Easter bunny always found us and delivered.

This is Easter 1969. I love the giant booze bottle on the ground behind us. I'm not even going to try and guess what that was about but it makes for some hilarious conversation now as adults. Patty and I were also discussing our chopped haircuts this evening during Easter dinner. I had brought some photos to her where she has the same hairstyle as I do in this picture. One question. Why?

Easter 1975. That extremely short hoochie dress I'm sporting was made for me by Patty's mother, Mrs. Fritze. She actually made a lot of clothes for Patty, Kelly and I including matching outfits one year. Hey, it was a thing back in the day.  The crazy thing about this picture is, I was married a year later. A year after that, Patty had her first baby, my godson, Aaron. How did our parents not kill us? 

With all the years behind us and all the loved ones that have left us, I am so grateful for these memories. I'm especially thankful today for Patty and her family. To be able to go to her home today and eat Easter dinner was truly a gift. To look through old photos and laugh at the shared memories with her was going home.