Mary Samsel wanted her little girl to have a pretty dress for special occasions, but money was tight in the 1920s. So she did what people usually did back then: She made do with what she had on hand.
Mary cut the skirt off her embroidered white Swiss batiste wedding gown - the dress she wore when she married Joseph Samsel on Oct. 14, 1912 - and stitched up a simple but special dress for young Jeanette.
"I must have been about 7 or 8 years old ... I could wear it only for church on Sunday or if we went visiting someplace," said Jeanette Czajka, now 84 and living in the Polish Village area of North Toledo. "I wore it for three or four years until I outgrew it, and then we just kept it."
That little dress, its 92-year-old fabric fragile but intact and still lovely, is one of the outfits that will be modeled at a vintage fashion show Nov. 10 at Inverness Club sponsored by the Lourdes College Auxiliary. Called "Sentimental Journey," the event will raise funds for scholarships.
Five-year-old Clare Helmer, daughter of Lourdes College President Robert Helmer, will model Jeanette Czajka's childhood dress, the oldest in the show.
The auxiliary wanted to take a different approach this year to the usual fashion show/luncheon, explained Judy Davenport, co-chairman of the event with Joyce Bettinger. In the past, the group has turned to local retailers to supply clothing and accessories for the auxiliary models.
The group settled on the vintage fashion theme and began searching for local treasures that soon began filling racks at Mrs. Davenport's Sylvania home, including wedding dresses going back to 1919, flapper dresses, a horsehair shawl, cocktail dresses from the 1940s and '50s, furs with matching muffs and hats, a drawstring-waist petticoat from the early 1900s, and a satin dressing gown.
At least one old wedding dress will stay on the hanger. The 1936 light blue velvet gown is probably a size one, Mrs. Davenport explained.
Other lovingly kept heirlooms are being used for centerpieces. Among them are a pair of hand-sewn, blue feathered slippers (1917); a black beaded handbag and black silk mourning hankie (1920); Hollywood paper dolls (1940); a handmade leopard hat (1925), and a silver filigree necklace (1920s).
Loaned items came from "friends, relatives, [auxiliary] members - anyone who was kind enough to share their heritage," Mrs. Davenport said.
An ivory satin wedding gown that will be modeled by Mary Ann Schlievert was originally worn in 1942 by Dama Seyfried; her daughter, Cathy McClellan, wore it when she was married in 1973.
Lisa King will model a "Persian rose" princess-style crepe gown and matching turban hat that her grandmother, the former Marie Rigney, wore when she married James Pheatt on Dec. 26, 1931. She will carry the shoes that match the dress, which came from an upscale women's clothing shop operated by Marie's sister-in-law, Geralda Pheatt, which was then located in the Spitzer Arcade downtown.
Sharon Pheatt, Marie and James' daughter-in-law, said she came across the ensemble and decided to save it when the family was sorting through things after Marie's death in 1986. "I like to have things to remember people by," she said. "I thought my children would like to see it, like to have it in the family."
Mrs. Czajka said she kept her little dress for sentimental reasons, too, as a memory of her mother. She said she has saved things that belonged to every member of her close-knit family.
"I have things that belonged to my dad and things that belonged to my mother. I even have an old purse she used to carry, with the comb and a compact and a hankie and a little bit of change she had in there. I have it the way she left it. Every time that I look at it, it brings her closer."
Lourdes College Auxiliary's "Sentimental Journey" luncheon and vintage fashion show starts at 11 a.m. Nov. 10 at Inverness Club. Tickets are $30 and $40; the reservations deadline is Nov. 3. Information and reservations: 419-882-0729.
Contact Ann Weber at: aweber@theblade.com
or 419-724-6126.
First Published October 28, 2004, 12:11 p.m.
