OBSERVATIONS ON CLOTHES IN THE 50's &60's!

    Up through the 50's and 1960's was a time when you went to events in your "Sunday best." Even on my first day of school in 1949 I wore a corduroy sports jacket. My Grandpa Laverty sat around on the weekends in wool pants, a  long sleeve shirt, and a heavy suit jacket. And that was in the summer. No! We did not have central air-conditioning.

      On a special gathering of my mom's family, my cousins, Phil and Stan, would come down to visit in a white shirt and tie. That was a little extreme, but! Everything got ironed of course even sheets.There was a time when Elvis Presley was popular that I had my mother starch my collars on my shirts so I could wear them up like him.

      When it was time to buy clothes for back to school we usually went to a store in Newton called Wormhandt's. It was an upscale men's clothing store that most town's had like Gildner's in Marshalltown. I really don't remember why we just didn't go there. It was closer. One time I do recall after gathering a whole bunch of clothes the clerk saying that the total came to around $100. I thought, wow! That was a lot of money then.

       Mom never bought clothes from Penney's or Sears. Something about "you get what you pay for." I think my dad had a bad experience at Sear's one time. The kids I met from Church Camp from Marshalltown made an impression on me and what they wore. You watched what those big city kids wore. 

       One time I spotted this kid at the Methodist Church Camp in Clear Lake with a pair of buck saddle shoes. Had to them. I made my mother when I got back find a pair in Marshalltown and that was when there probably 6 or more places to buy shoes. I did find a pair even though they were a size too big and I had to stuff some tissue paper in the end. As of this writing I still have "A" pair of brown buck saddle shoes that I bought in the mid 1970's and I use to wear them to every single Iowa Hawkeye football game for good luck!