Easter bonnets. These days we parody them like these pictures of my aunt Anne at the family Easter egg hunt and my triplet grandbabies but back in Harry Stilson’s time, fashion was taken very seriously. I found an article in the Richmond Times Dispatch on April 12, 1925 that reported that the first man wearing a straw hat was seen at 1St & Franklin and summer attire had officially begun. Harry’s tenants, the Crawfords, posed on Grayland Avenue and yes, straw hats were still in season in September.
Women wore hats (and white gloves) whenever they were in public. This hat department photo of Harry’s could have been an advertisement shot. Without notes or labels, that’s just a guess.
I believe the man posing here is in the Salvation Army band. The lady beside him is fashionably attired, I suppose. What a coat!
Bathing attire at Shields Lake was less revealing than today’s bikinis but still considered scandalous in some circles. I have a journal entry where Harry mentions showing his African-American friends, Mary Sparrow and Mary Taylor, bathing pictures which inspired bawdy comments. That visit was just one where I marvel at Harry’s audacity. For a middle-aged white man to be comfortable in a black household was uncommon but to visit and discuss bathing attire with ladies of any color was quite unheard of.
I pity kids in those days. Their clothing was uncomfortable and not conducive to playing. Below is “Mrs. Stone’s son” with Harry’s shadow in the photo. Little boys wore dresses and I always laugh when I see this picture of my father and his sister Norma, the least girly kid ever. She grew up to be a bridge engineer and I don’t remember her in dresses. Ever. Certainly not like this!
Harry even documented fashionable lounge wear for men. His neighbor, Jack Proctor, appeared in many photographs but this one of him in his jammies is a rare view of intimate clothing. Jack married the daughter of the Stilsons’ neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Elam. Ironically, decades later, I discovered that my friend Dolores Miller is kin to the Elams. She shared a story for my WWI book, From Richmond to France, and it sounded so familiar. It was familiar. Harry related the same story in his journal in 1918. Now the Elams’ descendants can giggle over great-uncle Jack’s PJs.
This Grayland Avenue photo of Harry and his daughter, Anita (my grandmother) indicates the formality of those days. I believe this was a reunion when Anita and her husband came to Richmond but, unlike today’s hugs, a handshake sufficed. I suppose that in a society that wore suits to the beach and heels to garden, a PDA or any demonstration of affection was simply out of the question. It just wasn’t done.
Right: Harry’s sister Vera, with women he sold photos to on a two-day vacation to Virginia Beach.