When I Went to Farnsworth, Every Day was Dress-Up Day

This morning on one of my favorite Facebook group pages, "Old St. Paul, Minnesota," a member posted a vintage photo of two kids playing on the sidewalk. The girl in the front of the picture is running, her dress flying up around her hips. And of course her undies are showing.

I was struck by two powerful thoughts: The first is that when I was a child growing up on the East Side, little girls rarely wore pants. Even playing outside riding bikes (or, shudder, swinging on the monkey bars at the Farnsworth playground), we were in dresses. Short ones mainly. Mini-skirts hadn't yet come in as high fashion, but a lot of what we wore would have qualified. In addition to being shorter (at least above the knee), as I remember most of those dresses were full-skirted, billowing out from the waist.

I borrowed this photo from the Minnesota Historical Society. It's tagged as about 1940, but the dress styles and the tricycle are very similar to what I remember in grade school.

And that little girl running with her panties showing? It could have been me. My memories of those days reveal something pretty contradictory: This way of dressing was common for girls, but so was an intense sense of modesty. I can't quite reconcile the two. But I do remember thinking that letting someone catch sight of your underwear was the issue. At least, that's the message I got from my mom.

I started at Farnsworth after second grade. Before that I had attended Mound Park Elementary, but that summer we had moved to Earl and Orange, and Farnsworth was just a few blocks away. The kids would all line up to wait for the school patrol to help us across the busy street - girls in one line, boys in the other. The boys were generally more rambunctious than the girls, and often they would goof off while waiting in line. One of their pranks? Coming up to one of the girls (usually a shy one) and asking her, "Do you know what day it is?" And without waiting for an answer, her dress would be thrown up, while the culprit shouted "Dress up day!"

Now, I know at this point someone is going to start screaming about sexual harrassment of women. But I was there, and I can tell you this was far from sexual. As I recall, we mostly led a sheltered life, and I suspect that most seven year old boys hadn't a clue what sex was or what might be underneath those revealed panties. I fell prey to this prank once, and I can tell you while I might have been embarrassed, what I felt was not harassment. To my mind, the boys were just goofballs looking for attention. So please let me tell my story and don't tell me I should have been offended. I just laughed.

When I got home from school, my mom asked the usual, "Anything happen at school today?" Of course, I told her about the incident in the patrol line. In horror she said,"Never, ever let that happen again! NEVER let boys see your underwear." So, underwear was the focus. It was to be kept out of sight. At least that was my takeaway from her reaction.

The next day my red-faced dad had the privilege of bringing a small paper bag to the principal's office on my behalf. I had been led by my teacher to the office (probably wrapped in something) and kept hidden and waiting in the nurse's room because my teacher noticed my bare butt when I sat down at my desk. NEVER LET THE BOYS SEE YOUR UNDERWEAR was etched in my mind...so I decided the answer was to not wear any.

My poor father - imagine having to get pulled away from work to bring a pair of little girl's panties to the principal's office. I don't know if he ever got over it, but I do know he never mentioned it to me. But I suspect that my mom did a panty check each morning before I left the house from that point on. She probably checked again when I got home. I'd like to tell you that was the one and only time I went to school with no undies...but it was at least the last time it happened when I was wearing a a short dress.

Dress-up day. The term (and the memory) still makes me laugh.