After a few days at The Home, which we lovingly called NLCH, we learned there were punishments for such infractions as “sassing” back the matrons, not being in bed ten minutes after the large bell was rung, missing the school bus, or-- a really big sin, wearing makeup!
All of my clothes, some of which were given to me on my 12th birthday just a few weeks before my enrollment, were confiscated. When asked why, the matron in my dorm informed me they were too “ worldly” for a girl my age. That meant the skirt was too short and showed my knees, or the blouse was cut too low: “We don’t want our titties to show, do we?” Miss Johnson would say. In my case a low cut blouse meant nothing because there was nothing to show. I do mean nothing!
They had a lot of reasons why we should dress in long, looser skirts and ugly blouses, (at my age now these styles would be okay only back then we hated them).
Then there was the makeup issue “Only whores wear lipstick,” Miss Johnson liked to say. I hadn’t heard that word before and had to have one of my dorm mates explain it to me.
Our goal in life at the time was to one-up the matrons. Woolworth had a lipstick for 25 cents called Tangee that barely colored the lips and was just a little greasy. So from the time we left the school bus we all got two swipes of the Tangee. No ruby red smackers here, but better than nothing, and by the time we returned to NLCH we had licked it all off.
I mentioned the punishments: Most of mine were leveled because I sassed back almost every time I opened my mouth. My regular punishment was to scrub our playroom floor which was the size of a basketball court. We were required to execute this task on our hands and knees. I have to say that had to be the cleanest floor in the entire complex and I had the knobbiest knees in the entire population at NLCH.
They never caught me wearing makeup, however one of the girls in my dorm was accused of wearing eye makeup. Anna had beautiful long black lashes which she inherited along with other beautiful features attributed to her Egyptian heritage. She had dry eyes and in those days the advice was to brush Vaseline on her lashes and around the lids. Of course this treatment made her eyes sparkle and the matrons were sure she was wearing eye makeup.
That accusation was put to bed when Anna was called in before the Home’s superintendent who bought Anna’s story about using Vaseline to keep her lids and lashes from drying out. Vaseline would have done nothing for my blond lashes. I’d have to wait until I left NLCH this place before I could wear eye makeup.
There was only one place we could wear makeup and dress outrageously: On STAGE!
There was a large gym with a stage in back of the chapel building that we could use to act in plays and perform in musicals, the most popular entertainment at the movies in those days. One of the younger volunteers encouraged us to make up dances and skits to perform on Friday and Saturday nights.
Like me, my dorm sisters were fascinated with movies and movie stars. We liked to think we were as good as Judy Garland and other super musical stars of the day and were always making up our own routines to perform before the captive Home Kids audience.
There were no movies in our little town so most of us had to wait until weekends when our relatives would take us to see the latest movies in one of the Chicago neighborhoods, usually a couple of bus or streetcar rides with transfers away.
Then a few of us would get together during the week and practice our favorite Doris Day and Debbie Reynolds routines in the play room until performance night in the Chapel’s big gym. Practicing putting on makeup alone took many hours. We were scolded by the matrons who witnessed this immoral task and told us we were all going straight to hell.
One of the girls said something like “shove it you old bat” and that’s when you-know-what hit the fan. We were all on floor-scrubbing duty for two weeks. Not that the floors needed it since as the resident-scrubber most of the time, I did my penance better than most. The floors were the cleanest in the complex.
We were tired out when variety show-time night finally came, but we were troupers and “the show must go on” was our motto. We had a great time performing those skits. Even the matrons applauded our efforts. We were big fishes in a little pond and boy, did we know it! (Autographs anyone? Anyone….?
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