Saturday Stories - Bare Midriffs

One of the places on the tourist agenda in the 1940s and 1950s was Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, CA.   There are huge statues and towering paintings and stained glass, lots of open space with trees and benches and the graves of famous people.  When Diane and her sister lived with their grandparents in Los Angeles there were many trips on weekends to see all the sights, including Forest Lawn.  It was the middle of the war years and fabric to make anything was difficult to find.  Their Aunt Vernice would buy whole bolts when she found them and made clothes for everyone in the family; shirts for the guys, dresses and blouses for the ladies, play clothes and school clothes for the children.  One summer everyone wore watermelon designs and another summer everyone wore tiny pink flowers .  That year Vernice came up with outfits that were a skirt and a bare midriff top for the girls.  Very classy with lace around the neck and along the straps of the tops.  Diane and her sister wore these nice outfits the day they went to Forest Lawn; Diane was about six and her sister almost nine.  When they went to go into the museum they were stopped by the guard and told they could not go in with bare midriffs!  What to do?  Aunt Vernice hauled out some safety pins, pinning the top to the skirt to cover those outrageous bare bellies, in turn, pulling the skirts up to an almost indecent height, they dare not bend over.  However, Marie would have nothing to do with it.  She sat on a bench outside, refusing to go into such a stuffy place.   Diane was too young to really appreciate the wonders that were on view and mostly remembers the marble floors and walls and the stained glass windows.  She has never been to Forest Lawn again.  She wonders what people wear to visit there these days.

 

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