Unfolding the mysteries our mothers hold close to their hearts

 By Mary Kay Roth

Scuffed and scarred by time, the old cedar chest had been dwelling in the storage room of my mom and dad’s basement for years.  So, when my parents quietly passed away, though I didn’t want much of the furniture from their home, I’d always been intrigued by the cedar chest.

We moved it to my house without cracking open the lid, as I always figured it was empty.  A few years passed.  

Then one day I peeked inside and found a curious treasure trove. My mom had stashed away about a dozen of her outfits, layered one atop another, most of them labeled with a small piece of white paper pinned onto the clothes – with a date.

Her satin wedding gown and fragile bonnet-veil from the early 1940s.  A crisp indigo blue uniform – with the iconic anchor – from when she served in the U.S.  Women’s Naval Corps. A pink lace shift with a tailored crocheted jacket that looked like it came straight from Jackie Kennedy’s wardrobe. Several knit suits with matching skirts and jackets, tailored casual wear from the 1970s.  

I wondered about so many things. 

How I wished I could have asked my mother why. Why did you leave this cache of clothes behind, so carefully preserved and labeled?  Why were they special?  Did you get them out sometimes and try them on – or just leave them hidden away?  What did you want us to know?

This week I carefully lifted each outfit from the cedar chest and spread all the clothes around me.

I wanted to let them breathe and live again, out from the shadows of my mother’s past.  Following the breadcrumbs she had left behind, I wanted to understand the mysteries she held close to her heart.

Inhaling the deep scent of cedar – and a hint of mom’s familiar cologne – I took time to examine each piece.

A gorgeous brown skirt and suit jacket with a classy bow on back, straight from Doris Day movies of the 1950s. Black and red tailored hourglass sheaths, made of flannel, knee-length, both labeled “1955-1960.” A gorgeous cap-sleeved peach silk frock with sparkly buttons – from the 1960s. An outfit from her square dancing days – about a decade after that. 

A vintage fashion show of mom’s life.

Ardell Alberta Gilfert (Roth) had a tough and tangled childhood growing up during the depression in a small Nebraska town, plagued with a fierce rebellious streak and an alcoholic father.  She made promises to her high school sweetheart, a gentle young man who went away to war and never came back.  Several months later she finally escaped that small town and ran away to join the Navy, fell head over heels for my dad and married amidst the chaos of World War II.

I think my mom was deliriously happy in the Navy, finding a giddy freedom she had never experienced.  But when everyone came home from the war, she was stuffed back into the claustrophobic conformity of girdles and happy homemaker.  

There was a sweet unhappiness about Mom.  She loved my dad and was a diligent mother who cared deeply for her children. She set curfews and high bars, made sure we learned our lessons.  She was in charge of the family budget, never coddled us, ran the household smoothly.

But I’m not sure my mom was ever comfortable with the strict gender roles of domesticity.

Yes, she made sure her own children crafted their dreams.

But mom never talked about her own.  What was she thinking during the time she was raising kids? What was she daydreaming about, hoping for? What were her fantasies, her disappointments?

When we were growing up, money was tight, my parents true stalwarts of frugality and self-sacrifice. These dress purchases must have been quite a rare and elegant indulgence.

I suspect Mom must have laboriously saved and scraped to buy labels like GlenHaven, Jerrie Lurie and, oh my gosh, Hovland-Swanson (the fanciest Lincoln store of my youth). 

I’ll never really know why she saved and savored these clothes, the real answer remains lost in the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart.

I like to believe, while she was vigilantly ensuring her own children had their dreams fulfilled, she found and lived some of her own dreams in the grace and beauty – of the contents in that cedar chest.

Then she locked them up for us to find.

I consider these enchanting inexplicable clothes a gift, perhaps a clue to what my mother envisioned herself to be.

A woman of style and independence.  

She refused to wear bathing suits, miniskirts or jeans, preferring classy styles the likes of Grace Kelly.  No, she never spoke to us about the pill or birth control, but was passionately pro-choice. After the war she never worked outside the home, but made it clear my father was not the boss.

This week I actually tried on a few of her clothes.  And I could feel her close and snug around me, a warm reminder to remember my own dreams.  I wondered about what secrets I hold dear, what have I locked away.

I wonder.

Meantime, I’m puzzled about what to do with her clothes.

The Nebraska State Historical Society is swamped with anything and everything from the Greatest Generation.  And it doesn’t seem appropriate to turn these beauties into dress-up whimsy.

For now, I’m folding them up, carefully and respectfully, and putting them back in the cedar chest.

Somehow, I hope my mom knows I found them. And that I hold them just as dearly and deeply as she did. 

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. 

I salute you and all the moms of the world, and the dreams and mysteries you hold close.