AUNT LUCY'S NIGHTGOWNS. My Mammaw was from a family of ten, and my mother had a favorite aunt amongst them. Mother always included her in in the gifts at Christmas and birthdays, and she was always so sweetly appreciative of the lovely nightgowns and bed jackets and slippers. I don't suppose many folks today would even know what a bed jacket is---they were lovely lacy or fluffy and soft very short jackets made to match the nightgowns. They came in sets, so that a lady who was ill at home or in the hospital could sit up gracefully in her bed with her jacket on for visitors or a doctor's House Call, shoulders warm and modesty satisfied.
I so well remember helping Mother and Aunt Lucy's daughter clean out the bedroom after Aunt Lucy passed away, and the sacheted chest drawer that held at least a dozen neat gift boxes, still holding those gowns and bed-jackets---"Saved For Nice," and for trips to the hospital.
And in a sort of wardrobe deja vu later in the seventies, I discovered a great stack of similar boxes nestled into Grandmother White's dresser drawer, when I was helping her to pack for a hospital trip. Still in the tissue, still in the box. At least she chose two to pack and take with her.
I like to think that perhaps just pondering all that silky apparel, with the sumptuous lace and the shining fabric, gave the lives of those two hard-working women a little version of a Hope Chest, or a Something Beautiful to dream on, pristine and luxurious, just waiting for an occasion.
We do too much "Saving for Nice," sometimes, when that NICE could transmute Ordinary into Wonderful or Glorious.
