Delayed Hallowe'en II or A Gypsy Tale

Here follows another sappy personal reminiscence:


My maternal great grandmother, Florence Tippet passed away sometime between my second and fourth year. She was a wizard at sewing. She dyed very ordinary fabric and made two incredible Hallowe'en costumes.
One was a blue overdress with panniers and a fake "bustle" and long light rose skirt in the style of the 1890's with a tiny flat hat with ribbons. We called it the "Old Fashioned Girl" outfit.

She made two of each for her granddaughters Susan and Barbara. Barbara was perhaps four or five at the time, and Susan was about ten.
I got to wear the one meant for my mother when I was in the sixth grade...I thought I was the cat's meow that day. We had to be careful because the fabric (which I believe actually began as burlap somehow, but felt very soft and normal.) was weakening and thinning in places. I believe even my paternal aunt, Paula on the other side of the family with no connection to the amazing maker of the dress got the privilege of wearing one of those costumes.

Earlier, when my aunt Barbara was perhaps three at the most, my great grandmother made two gypsy outfits in the same way from scratch, the smaller being a navy wide skirt and short colorful open vest with ribbons around the borders, with a long broad scarf to tie across the brow, and a second matching one for a belt.
My mother's version when she was perhaps eight had a bright red skirt, and short ribboned vest with a similar pair of broad scarves.

That particular outfit made it through three generations.

There is a photograph next to some Fifties draperies that look straight out of any movie set then, say "Magnificent Obsession," with my mother's hair uncharacteristically long and thick, really beautiful, but caught up with the scarf as a big rightside tie from doing much mischief. She has a broad pleased smile across her face and clearly loves her gypsy getup. Her sister has absolutely no appreciation for her own cute blue number; she's just terrified of the camera... I imagine her thinking, "Where's MOMMY? And why do I have to stand here? I don't LIKE flashy picture thingies.."

I was next in line for the red gypsy skirt....but I didn't have the long dark locks that both my mother and myself felt essential to the costume. She solved the problem by buying a black Hallowe'en wig and sewing big gold hoop earrings to the wig itself. All the benefit of ear piercing with none of the pain. The look distracted from the heavy orthopedic footwear that I had to have carrying me around, along with a beaded necklace to click and clack satisfyingly as I moved. I'm sitting on a very velvet very green Seventies couch, with a smile less proud than my mothers, more secretive and mysterious ready to tell fortunes and the secret magicks of being a gypsy. I remember thinking, as the camera went off, "I've got long HAIR! And LIPSTICK! Isn't this just COOL?!"


My cousin Karen, the future musical theater person got to wear the gypsy costume near the end of its life. She had two scarves one as a belt and one almost entirely covering her head with appropriate jewelry, makeup and attitude with her own hair, long enough to do justice to the scarves....She's doing the gracefull Cinderella bow even then...a royal almost grownup smile. forshadowing her time as a performer on a Disney ship?

Karen was recently helping her parents organize keepsakes and found the three gypsy pictures and gave them as gifts.

We all owe our fun to an incredible seamstress that I barely knew. Here's to great Grandmother Florence and her magical needle and thread.