Heading off for college

During the summer after high school I boarded a Greyhound Bus and took off for Fresno, California for Brethren Volunteer Service, summer unit. Meanwhile, Mom was back at the house on Hannah getting me ready for college (I had a knack for getting out of the work being busy doing other things). I don't have any patterns, and no photos taken at college, but I do have the actual blazer and jacket and some photos taken today. Both are still with me, although I don't wear them. Mom made Carol and me lined corduroy blazers, hers was brown and yellow stripe and mine was coral, black and gray. The photo I'd planned to post showed me in 1965 showing off my new piano, and I was going to include that story about buying the piano with my grad student stipend, but it won't load. So here it is hanging on the closet door, today. I think I may have worn this blazer a few times in in the 1980s, especially because it is sort of close to the Ohio State scarlet and gray theme.



I could wear this unconstructed jacket with a pleat at the shoulder on game days here in Columbus, Ohio where everyone wears scarlet and gray. It's 100% wool and just a bit scratchy, and over the years a few tiny moth holes have appeared, but other than that, it's like new. I think the idea was it would look like a "Pendleton shirt" which of course, I couldn't afford, but they were very popular then.

That summer Mother also made JoElla and me (friends since grade school) matching gray quilted bedspreads, reversable to pink with pink bed skirts for our dorm room twin beds (pink and gray were hot, hot, hot 1957 colors--even for the cars, kitchen appliances, typewriters, etc.). JoElla and I were terribly disappointed in our tiny room in Oakwood Hall at Manchester College, but we managed, using the window sill as a refrigerator. For second semester we were moved to something larger. I believe Mother had also made Carol and her roommate bedspreads and bedskirts, but I don't remember what they looked like.