Dressing Like Twins

This photo of Dad, Betty and myself is a late entry I found after I had posted this blog. The circle skirts were red with white swirls. The blouses were white with red cherries on the shoulders and red buttons. Mom made the skirts, but I think the blouses were purchased.

Betty, Ramona and Fritzi (I think)


My little sister, Betty Ruth Lynam, was not quite two years younger than I. (Sept. 23, '45 - Nov. 18, '43) There were times Mom dressed us alike. In this picture we're not dressed alike except for those @#*! long brown cotton stockings we always had to wear under our dresses. I still remember sitting on the stools in Dunham Drugstore with Mom and Betty, drinking a nickel coke (which was one of our treats), looking down and finding a dollar bill. I hopped down and picked it up. I was rich! Before I could quit imagining all I was going to spend that dollar on, Mom took us down the street to Biggar's Department Store, down the stairs to the basement and used my found money to buy some of those ugly brown cotton stockings! To borrow one of my granddaughter's laments: "It's not fair!!!"


Dad (Louis), Mom (Ruth), Ronald, Grandma Delphia, Grandpa Joe Ridnour in back, Betty & I in front. This picture was taken the summer of '47 when we went to Illinois to visit Grandpa's cousins. We were posed here on the lawn of Frank & Nellie (Gray) Anderson's. About two blocks from their house was a park on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River where we went to play on the swings and slides and merry-go-round and watch the ships and barges go up and down the river.
I don't remember the color of our matching, striped, dresses.


Norman Firkins, Mom, Betty and I on the west side of Jasper # 2 Schoolhouse. Weren't our plaid skirted dresses cute? This may have been the "end of the school year" picnic - or some special occasion - we didn't dress so well for a normal school day. Normie was clowning around. I was probably cuddling so shyly close to Mom because I had a crush on my brother's best friend.

There was a time in the early '50's when it was popular to wear 'Mother-Daughter' dresses. These I do remember, they were pink and aqua. The bolero jackets were pink over aqua sundresses. We had ordered them from a catalog, probably National Bellas Hess. This picture was taken in August, 1950.

And, finally, probably the last time Betty and I had matching dresses. These were black and white striped taffeta. The sleeves were a puffy white sheer fabric. The occasion was Ron's eighth grade graduation - May 22, 1954.

We still had dresses made off the same pattern in later years, but never with matching fabric. As long as Betty was still in grade school, we sometimes wore one another's clothes. But after she was in high school, too, I would no longer trade clothes with her. I wonder if my granddaughters are as stingy with their sisters as I was with mine?