Even if I didn’t already know it, I could tell from your story that your sister is the older one. I am the oldest of 3. I was my sisters protector and a bit of a boss until I was in the 6th grade and our older and kind neighborhood, Janet, informed me that she liked me but if I didn’t watch it I’d get my butt kicked in junior high in 7th grade. I got her point. I still protected my sisters but I became more magnanimous about allowing others to “be Dorothy” and not just because physical violence has always scared me. I understood empathy.

We had so darned many of those half-petticoats and a few full ones, as well. My mom dressed me and my middle sister alike until I was 10 and usually in dresses that “needed” petticoats and, on Easter, coats and hats, too. Some of my favorite photos are of me and my sister and my dad all dressed up. We were very cute. Then I grew to hate the idea of dressing like my sister. I didn’t want her to “copy" me.

We actually still have every one of those hats stashed away in hat boxes in a closet at the front of my old room at my mom’s. I like to go into that closet and open the boxes and look at the hats. Some belong to my mom. Wonder why we stopped wearing hats?

My neice can’t believe we wore all that silly stuff. I used to make her beautiful dresses with matching hats. Even as a baby she’d tear them from her head and scream if we’d replace them: the girl never liked hats!

In the other closet in my old room, the one that I used for my clothes, sits a big traveling trunk. I forget to whom it belonged. Maybe a great aunt?

My mom stashed away clothes we didn’t ruin in that trunk. Who knew?

When my neice was tiny, I thought about how we had dressed her mom in those petticoats and asked if they might still be around. My mom said to look in that trunk. We did! And we found all these beautiful dresses we had worn until we were about 5. My neice was then 3. She was so excited! We told her stories of things we remembered happening when we wore each dress. If we remembered. She was able to wear many of our dresses and repeated our stories as if they had happen to her! She’d tell us stories of playing with her sister. She has never had a sister. We must have conveyed lovely memories with our stories. She wanted to share them.

She does have a brother. For years she’d complain that I’d never understand her sad fate of having no sister and only a brother. I didn’t fall for one of those stories. She and her brother are best friends.

She was the only girl in their 1st neighborhood so she’d gather the boys and produce plays, usually some version of PeeWee’s Playhouse, assigning the parts and barking orders. I was afraid of her! Every once in a while some tiny tot boy would stand up to her and say, “No!” to which she’d reply, “Fine. You just won’t ever be in a play ever, ever again!”

All those little tot boy eyes would get big and their voices would fall silent. I’d root for the strong kid to leave…silently, of course. I didn’t want to be banned!

He’d always back down and soon they’d all be dressed up and awaiting her direction.

Older sisters. I think we mean well. I remember being so lonely before my middle sister came along. I think I thought she was a toy for me to play with for years. And she thought of me as her voice. If someone asked her a question, she’d tug at my sleeve and I knew to answer.

We never found even one of those petticoats in that trunk if anywhere else. We played with them outside so they were probably destroyed like my dad’s parachute from the war that we found and rigged over the swing set to make a huge tent. Way more fun than video games!

My middle sister and I signed up for ballet. The first day the studio was so hot my sister fainted. She landed face first in the floor. Her teeth cut her lips. I saw her bleeding. It freaked me out. I hadn’t protected her! We were 7 and 5.

I refused to return. She took ballet for years and was even accepted to train with the Houston Ballet from the age of 10 on. I coveted her tutus. She is tall and skinny and graceful. I am short and skinny and not at all graceful.

I have always wanted to wear a pink tutu. I’d wear one today if I could find one to fit! I’d wear it to write and do housework but never outside. My husband would just accept it and laugh. With me, not at me.

Thanks for your wonderful stories! They brought back wonderful memories of my childhood at a similar time and even my niece’s childhood. My nephew, soon after playing Conkie and PeeWee and Cowboy Curtis found video games. I think he missed tons of fun.