Easters past

1975, I think.  I was 14.  Tim would have been about 11.

I was wearing “Jeanie-green.”

 

All the Little Landers.   1973

Danny was 6.  Tammy was 7.  Tim would have been 9 (his birthday is near Easter), and Joe would have been 11.  Me in my yellow peasant-style (remember Gunne Sax?) dress?  I was 13.  This black and white photo was taken by a blind guy.  No kidding.  He was blind and he took pictures.  Harold.  True story.

Joey-Timmy-and-Jeanie in 1966

My mom’s photos were in a box in Lousiana for many years, lost we thought.  Lots of water damage.  We were 5-3-and-6.  Hated all those pin curls my mom was always putting in my hair.

1968.

Tammy and Danny stole the show, but I loved my lavendar taffeta dress with the cape.  Made by my mama.  I was 8.

Timmy was a newborn in 1963.

Little Joey was just 2 and I was 3 1/2.

I loved my peach coat.

The piece-de-resistance:

1970.  My dad was planning a huge service in a large rented auditorium with our denomination’s radio personality.  Some ladies in church took me downtown on Saturday to get my hair done (and yes, that is ALL my hair) because I wanted to be like Dottie Rambo.  I came home and had to go door-to-door handing out Easter service flyers with my dad in windy weather.  But it held up, even after sleep. Wasn’t I just the picture of a little Pentecostal girl??   I was 10.

Easters meant new clothes and hats, usually.  It meant door-to-door flyers.  It meant waking up to Easter baskets filled with candy from the sweet mamala.  It was long days of church, morning and night, singing hymns that had impossible notes and big Easter dinners (usually ham, sometimes a big egg hunt at Aunt Rosie’s with a coconut cake in the shape of a bunny) and it meant being a Christian is worth celebrating.  Our traditions may seem silly, but it is our high, holy day.  He lives!

May it ever be so.

3 thoughts on “Easters past

  1. 1975 – how did you get away with the leather tie-on bracelet? What the?? And where, pray-tell, were the rest of us?? 1968 – Wasn’t the white bottom added to mine & Dan’s outfits so they wouldn’t be “too short”? Or was that just the seamstress Mom doing the cool blocking on our outfits? 1970 – Yes, Jeanie, you do look Pentecostal. “United” Pentecostal! And Timmy looks like Kojak getting ready to solve a case or something. tee hee. Love it all. Thank you for sharing.

    1. The white was for modesty. The tie-on bracelet took fancy footwork. Mom let me keep it as long as I didn’t take it off. It was on my wrist for 8 months. Then, she wouldn’t allow me to replace it. Ha.

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