29 September 1956 “A 50’s Gal Remembers Her Youth”

I was thinking lately how I might recall my fictional youth. Being the age I am now in 1950’s would mean my ‘teen years’ would have been spent in the 1930’s. This is when I would recall my own first foray’s into fashion and music. My cooking and even my memories of my mother would be from this time, mainly. Many of us identify with that time when we were teens into early 20’s and so I thought I would share with you what my fictitious 50’sgal memories could be.
I might be getting too old for what may have been one of my favorite radio shows, “little Orphan Annie”

I would most likely look forward to listening to Fibber McGee and Molly.

What young lady isn’t always excited about the latest fashions!

Patterns such as these would be my template for my own wardrobe, mixed with store bought I imagine. The ‘New Look’ I will encounter with Dior after the war will seem oddly familiar to these lengths I wore in my youth. And these predictions from the 1930’s to the year 2000 will seem fantastical.

A lady’s hair is her crowing glory and short but highly stylized is the look of the day. Though it is becoming a little looser than the 1920’s. Although some of the styles will seem familiar, again, in the 1950’s. This 30’s look on Alice White is not that far removed from these 1950’s styles. Maybe I would even covet the brave new brush in colors used in high fashion, such as this winning exhibition of hair design in London 1935.
And though I would be going to the pictures and seeing all the glamorous stars, even hoping to be as lovely and decked out as them    I would still have to contend with seeing images such as this. If not in my own town, then at least in papers.
A young gal would most likely be expected to learn to cook, even if she were lucky enough to have a maid later on (except the upper classes of course).
 This might well have been me in a cookery class in the 1930’s. How old fashioned it would seem, looking back now in my modern kitchen with a dishwasher, easy to use range and large refrigerator and freezer.
And the 1930’s kitchen might only seem different with all the newer appliances, but bright fun colors and linoleum were still what was ‘in’.
Here are some recipes from a cookbook I have from 1926 that I sometimes use. I imagine it would have been in my mother’s kitchen and perhaps she would have given it to me. These are some fun dessert recipes:
And, certainly, the old music would still be played on the radio here in 1956 and I might tap my foot recalling summer dances in my long slim satin dresses, flowers floating in water, paper lanterns, men in wide pants toting ukuleles.

So, on a day such as today, when my mind might wander to my youth, these are some of the things that I would recall. Do any of you have any particular things of the 1930’s that you love?