The Coats

Living in the Boston area for 60 odd years, one thing you have throughout your life, if you're lucky, is a lot of nice warm coats and memories to go with them.

The first one I remember when I was around 3-4 years old in 1938-39. It was brown wool tweed with leggings and very itchy. The snow stuck to it when you rolled around, and you looked like a snowman. But it took a long time for wet and cold to penetrate that heavy wool. But when it did,it was time to go in the house. Without a dryer,you hung your things next to the old oil stove and watched the snow melt off them.To this day, I love the smell of woolen mittens and things drying, and the memories of the snow up on the windowsills.

Then there was the green coat, I was about 7 or 8. It had a hood with leopard lined fur collar and cuffs with a tie belt. I had to walk about a mile to school, so the hood was a good idea, but my mother thought it was not big enough to last me through the next year too. In those days, a coat had to last at least two seasons. But I wanted it so much. She told me I could have it, but I would have to wear it the next year, even it was tight. It was, and I did. But she did make me new mittens with an extra long cuff to cover the shortness in the sleeve. And I never complained.

When I was in the 6th grade, I wanted a Navy peacoat with rabbit fur earmuffs and fur mittens with red leather palms. I didn't get it. It's not very practical to wear a jacket to school when you have to walk so far with a school uniform. The other kids lived near the school or were bused from the Naval hospital to school. That year, one of my classmates drowned in a skating accident, and the nuns made a big thing of the mass, everyone in school who had a peacoat and earmuffs could be in the procession. I felt left out in church that morning.

Then came my Easter coat that year. It was Air Force blue with braid on the collar and cuffs, with a navy hat and shoulder bag. One Saturday morning, I got all dressed up and we took the train to West Roxbury to visit a family friends new big house. It was the first time I was ever in a house where they called the cellar a rumpus room. It was pine finished with a fireplace and a bar, well stocked. My friend and I played at the bar, and I ate too many Maraschino cherries and got sick all over my coat on the train on the way back home. I was a mess and so embarrassed, but it cleaned up good. I looked real smart in my long shoulder length hair and hat in the pictures we took that afternoon.

I don't remember much about junior high school, mostly jackets to wear with pants which were the in thing now. I had a blue short swing coat for dress, and my brother Jim's white jacket with stripes he bought with his after--school job money. I did not let him catch me wearing it, and a trench style raincoat with writing all over it.

I started to work that summer in a bakery. I was 14 and needed working papers to be signed by my father. Then that fall, I started high school in Boston, a very long streetcar and train ride. With my own money, saved from working, I bought a charcoal black coat with a long red fringed scarf and red earmuffs and bag. I wore that coat for 3 years, and never had it cleaned. all my fun in high school, I had in that coat. And I have been working ever since.

After high school, my friend and I were at Morton's, a real exclusive Boston store to buy new winter coats. She bought a nice basic dark gray, and I bought a big off-white full coat with big shall collar to cuddle up in with the man that would become my husband. This coat was in the cleaners all the time. It cost $69.95 , in the fifties that was a lot of money for me. And I also wore it through two pregnancies.

I don't think I had another special coat until after I was married. An emerald green, it had snaps up the side and along the shoulder. I wore it with an off-white hat that looked like a man's soft hat with my shoulder length hair. I was smart looking going to church.

I guess I grew out of that fitted coat fast when I was going to have a baby. So, my next coat was a brown and beige, with big pockets to hold all the things a mother has to hold. Then some nylon washable jackets, very practical with small children.

But along the way, I did have a nice basic black coat, which was around even for my girls to wear when they grew up. Then there were the two man made fur coats, leopard and pony fur that my husband bought us. I felt so rich in them. Yes, there have been many coats and lots of memories.

What made me think of all this is that I just bought a new jacket with a leopoard lined hood and cuffs. The moral of the story is this, like in coats styles and in life, what goes around comes around.

Claire died February 21st 2024 at 2:56 am.