My parents came to visit this weekend and brought a surprise. They’ve been staying at our family house up in Vermont (aka the family attic) and my mom came across a package of my grandfather’s baby clothes. So what was the well-dressed austro-hungarian jewish infant wearing circa 1901? Check it out:
The details are amazing. Look at these tiny pleats:
Here’s another one. Apparently babies at the time also came with hats, but they were considerably more lacy, and had fewer ears:
Now you might wonder, why do we still have my grandfather’s baby clothes? Especially given that he was born in Europe and came here when he was a kid. Well, apparently I come from a long line of pack rats.
Mary Nanna | 16-Aug-10 at 12:55 pm | Permalink
It is amazing that they did all that work especially since baby is going to puke and wee all over them! Nevermind – maybe they were for “best” or just people took pleasure in small things and making baby look pretty was one of them. How lucky that your grandfather left when he did. My husband’s grandparents escaped the cossacks to Britain at the turn of the century too – only a single family of his wider family tree lives today in Russia – the rest were killed in WW11. Sobering, isn’t it.