Dancing, Fifties Style

Writing about my sisters and me brought to mind a facet of growing up in our end of town. Many of the high school students were involved in the sorority-fraternity system that was in place at that time. MA led the way for us by pledging one group of girls, and BJ and I eventually followed along by doing the same.

There were five fraternities and about eight sororities and each one hosted two formal dances a year. If a girl was lucky enough to attend all the boys’ balls and her own girls’, she could conceivably go to thirteen dances per year. (I’m counting the prom at school which I must say was rather anti-climactic after all the others). It was a girl’s dream to be invited to as many of them as she could and we three sisters connived to do just that.

We didn’t care who the date was because you rarely saw each other during the night. There were always plenty of “stags” at each party to “break in” on a girl, and if she got a “good rush” (that’s what we meant if lots of boys danced with you during the night), it was a successful dance. I remember once when I was a freshman, I received a phone call that went something like this:

“Hello?”

“Peggy, this is _____ ______.”

“Oh, hi!” like he was just the one I had been waiting to hear from when, in fact, I had never heard of him.

“I was wondering if you would go to the Alpha Chi dance with me.”

“I would love to!” I gushed.

And so it went.

(I had someone point him out to me the next day and actually, he was cute, so that was icing on the cake.)

All of these dances meant many formal dresses. The fashion back then was the GWTW style with big hoop skirts and starched petticoats underneath the dress. So how in the world did we have enough of those dresses with huge billowing skirts and strapless tops? My mother was very resourceful, as I’ve said before. She made them all.

And she really turned them out in nothing flat. I can remember walking in one afternoon after school and she was on the living room floor cutting out the dress I was to wear that night!!! And she made it in time, too. She was also very clever at remaking dresses with just a few decorations here and there and the dress looked new!

So that was how she dressed three daughters for the formal dances, but where do you store that many dresses made out of so much fabric? That’s another story.