Wearing Memories: Tweed Overcoat
My mother was set to attend Pratt art school, but met my father, a navy officer, during WWII. Seven children and over 40 years of marriage later, she never got to art school. She grew up very poor. Her father died when she was three. She sewed most of her clothing, telling me that she did not want to go through life “safety-pinned together.” Later, after having a large family, she still had little money for clothing. She did, however, always have a nice overcoat, wore her hair in a chignon, and put on dark red lipstick and Chanel no. 5. This true Donegal tweed was worn over an inexpensive housecoat as she walked me to kindergarten. The outside world saw the coat, the hair and the lipstick, and had an image of my mother that she wished them to see.
-Nancy Alexander, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware
