My mother spent the first half of her life raising children, working in Churchill's, the family bar and grill on Macomb Street, and coping with all things domestic including various dogs and a parakeet from Hawaii. But once the early hard ships of the Depression and World War Two were over, Bebe was ready to do something completely different. The Pepco ad above which originally appeared in 1950 in the Washington Post might have been one of her first gigs. She had three teenage children at home at the time and was just embarking on a modeling career which would lead to fashion shows at DC's now disappeared department stores Woodies and Garfinckel's. She also did runway shows at the Mayflower and the Shoreham.
(Click on the pictures to enlarge... I love that woman's expression in the front row.)
Bebe made many modeling friends along the way, all of whom were on the "mature" side." They called themselves the Model Ts. I don't know who the dude is in the middle, but wouldn't you think he'd be happier? Maybe his knees were killing him.
In May 1955 my sister and grandmother got into the act at a Mother's Day show for Lansburgh's Department Store. "Three Generations in Size 9!" exclaimed the caption. Both Bebe and her mother were asked what a woman might like to do on Mother's Day. My grandmother replied that she wanted to take her whole family back to Honolulu, and everyone would get a "pikaleili lei." Bebe wished that she could spend the whole day in bed with meals brought to her, then she wanted to go out dancing in the evening. I'm pretty sure those weren't the answers the reporter was looking for because "getting down to brass tacks" Bebe added that models always needed "thousands of stockings."
Dig the crazy lids on these gals.
My sister had a daisy perched on hers.
The picture below featured in one of the Washington papers carried the description: "Dedicated to the Woman Who Cannot Make Up Her Mind. These two forward looking suits can go South now or do summer duty here later on."
I don't know where they were going, but they do look ready for anything a the time.
In the late winter of 1958, Bebe made the news again by wading through snow drifts to hitch a ride for her and "her hatbox."
She made it just in time to change out of boots and ski pants and into spring togs for a fashion luncheon at the Shoreham's Blue Room.
Later that year in June, Bebe entered a bathing beauty contest put on by the radio station WGAY for women over 40. She won second prize which was a backyard swimming pool the likes of which I never saw because she turned it down.
What? !
Yes. She turned it down and was quoted as saying: "I don't swim if I can help it. I'm strictly an indoor girl." A bit ironic considering how many bathing suits 'the mature mermaid' had to model for this event.
Here's a picture of the winner. No offense to Mrs Rebecca Magnuson of Silver Spring, but I think my mom, Miss Number 2, got rooked. You be the judge:
Bebe pretty much hung up her guns after that one, not necessarily because she was over forty or a sore loser, but probably because she got pregnant with me. She remained beautiful all her life of course, both inside and out, and now I know why my father never stopped giving her stockings.
Interesting indeed! Is that really your mom?
ReplyDeleteI thought the lady was an illustration. Even in 1950s they had pretty good composition. They used a lot of text in an advert though. Nowadays, they would only use that much text in medicine ads I guess.
ReplyDeleteyes that's really my mother- scanned out of the newspaper so the reproductive quality is lacking!
ReplyDelete