I’ve been posting some of Grandma Eveline’s newspaper clippings from the 1960s-1970s and I thought this one was the perfect follow-up to my recent post about my mom’s knees and my pigeon toes.
Ouch.
Mini-skirts were the bane of parents, grandparents and school administrators in the mid-to-late 1960s. First popularized in Europe – many credit British designer Mary Quant – the mini-skirt made it’s way across the ocean to middle America where girls like me subscribed to Seventeen Magazine and wanted to dress like Twiggy.
I never really had the knees for mini-skirts though.
And even in the 3rd grade, sitting by a friend on the playground, I was asked about those little blue and purple lines showing through the skin of my thighs.
So I suppose I should have avoided short skirts.
In my high school in Joplin, MO around 1968, girls were required to drop to their knees if a teacher or administrator thought their skirt was too short. A ruler was used to measure the distance from the floor to the hem of your skirt. If it exceeded 4 inches, your parent’s were called and you had to go home and change.
I think I had to do this once. But maybe I was just so humiliated for a friend that I think it happened to me. I do know I was never sent home – so if it was me, I tugged that skirt down just far enough to pass.
And this is reminding me of the girl I carpooled with in Joplin. Ninth grade was in middle school then and I carpooled with another girl who also had to get to school early for band practice. When my mom drove, Gayle would sit in the back seat and, during the drive to school, she would take off her shoes and white socks and procede to put on a pair of panty hose and sometimes a different pair of shoes that she had stashed in her very large purse. (No backpacks in those days.) On the days her mom drove, Gayle would run into the school bathroom as fast as she could to change there. If my mom knew what was going on in the back seat, she never said anything.
These days it is undoubtedly best to cover my knees.
Your story brings back some memories. I used to roll my skirt up after leaving the house otherwise my dad have stopped me if my skirt was too short. Do you remember when girls were first allowed to wear pant suits to school? That was such a huge deal at the time.
Now you have me remembering. Wearing pants to school…. Must have started when I was in junior high..? All of my clothes came from Sears, so when designer logos were on the back pocket of your jeans, I didn’t have one and I specifically remember that from junior high. After I got to Baylor, I learned that just a year or two before, female students couldn’t walk across campus in their P.E. clothes. If that rule had still been in effect, I would not have gone to Baylor!
Pant suits (no jeans) were allowed the first day back to school after Christmas break of my 7th grade year (Jan. 1971). I remember being so excited and I don’t remember one girl without a pant suit on that day. I don’t remember when we were first allowed to wear jeans, but I do remember wearing them in high school.
Hmmm – so now I’m trying to remember if those designer jeans were just at events that didn’t happen during the school day. I looked at my yearbook from my sophomore year – 68-69, and the only girls in pants were in pictures of extra-curricular events. Pantsuits were more of the style around ’71 and my yearbook for ’71 had girls in pants – but maybe not jeans. So maybe I’m not remembering correctly. I do remember that in junior high I didn’t have the “right” jeans but that may have had nothing to do with school. I moved from MO to TX in Oct. of ’70, so there may have been some regional differences.
Oh my gosh, not sure where to begin. What fantastic photos, such a treasure and what great memories and stories to go with them all. I have to say I really favor the photo of your mom and dad at the counter. I always like seeing little ones working in the kitchen….it’s always fun to bake with them and that picture really shows it! A very nice finish with your mom’s recipes too!
Hi, Karen. Thanks for your kind comments! That photo at the counter may be the only one I have of the three of us together, so it is special to me. I had such fun hanging out with my grandmother in the cafe!
I don’t know what happened to my reply to your comment! I replied this morning from my iPad, but neither your comment nor my reply is showing. 🙁 I’ll try again, but not sure if you comment will show. Anywhooo… thanks for your lovely comments. I think the photo at the counter is the only one of the three of us together, so it is special to me. I had great fun hanging out with my grandmother! I hadn’t paid attention that the recipe would follow, but guess that works well. Thanks for stopping by, Karen!