Isabella's Dresses

These are Isabella’s dresses. 

My grandmother.  Isabella Whitney Wallach.  Her initials, IWW, she said, also stood for I Won’t Work, the industrialists name for the International Workers of the World, a labor organization which was considered radical.  She said it with a wry smile and so I always felt she was a little proud of that connection.  

I have so many memories of her.  I loved her dearly and spent many days listening. When she was home bound in her nineties at her daughter’s house, we would spend Saturday afternoons together.  She would ask me to bring her a white castle hamburger and fries along with a beer and then I would get to listen to her stories.

But this is about the dresses.  When I was in college, she started giving me her old dresses.  They were from the 30’s and 40’s and I loved them.  I wore them everywhere even during my first teaching year.  I think they helped get me in a contract non-renewal situation.  I was told I did not dress properly.  Who knew that your grandmother’s dresses made you look like a hippie. 

  

The ones I wore in college, I wore out.  And these are the dresses that are left.  The yellow dress was worn at my parents wedding in 1951.  I wore it at their 40th wedding anniversary gathering.  The black dress was my official wedding and funeral dress for a number of years.  The light blue one became my summer wear everywhere dress.   I have outgrown them now, just as she had when she started passing them on to me. And now it is time for me to send them on.