Goodbye, Sister Princess

A long, long time ago Bremerton celebrated Navy Day every October. A fitting celebration for a town whose very existence was and still is dependent upon a facility that caters to the needs of naval vessels.

They stopped celebrating the men and women who enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1949 and instead lumped together all of the U.S. armed forces and began to observe Armed Forces day in May.

In this morning's obituaries a name sounded familiar to me. I clicked to the story; the face was also familiar. Then the memory kicked in: Ilene Banning was a North Kitsap High School princess in the Armed Forces Day Parade. I was in that same parade, but it was called the Navy Day parade in 1947. I was the Silverdale princess (Central Kitsap High School).

The princesses, all seniors, were elected by the students in their respective schools in the area. The Navy Day Queen was chosen from the student body of Olympic (Junior) College.

At the time I was in my senior year at CK and living with the Alta and Frank Youngs' family on Clear Creek Road in Silverdale. I had just started going with Rookie (Charles R.) Atkinson that month. He was so-oo-oo jealous and thought I was now going to start dating the "sailor" (Lt. j.g. ensign) on the Princeton because he had been selected to be my escort for the festivities. He would be wrong.

For one thing being a princess was a distraction for me (I had a lot on my plate that year) and I wasn't exactly comfortable in the role. The other princesses were Beverly Pearson from South Kitsap HS, a senior from Bremerton High and one from Shelton (I'll try to find their names and publish them at a later date). Ilene, and the rest of the royal court were far too busy that week to do anything else except concentrate on how to put on makeup, how to walk, how to talk and how to wave from the convertible we were assigned to in the parade. They sent us to a short version of charm school to perform our royal roles. Charlie Rook needn't have been jealous. My escort was shorter than me and looked like he was about 13 years old. No competition for the good looking Rookie...

Our busy schedule included staying with a chaperone at a local hotel (at the time I think it was the only one). We had to stay close to the activities and it was a way to relax between appearances. Most of us were stricken with laryngitis that first night. Our wonderful chaperone and Mother Hen for the group,was Statira "Stat" Boyce, a local socialite and representative of the Navy Day committee. I thought of this glamorous lady in her large brimmed hat as "our Auntie Mame!" Stat brought a sack of lemons for us to suck on to try to get our voices working again. I can't remember if it helped or not.

One of Alta's daughters-in-law found a dress for me to wear to the ball, but other than that we had no special wardrobe requirements. I got my Dad back in Chicago to spring for enough money to buy a new grey gabardine suit, blouse and shoes to wear in the parade and to tour the Princeton carrier where all of our escorts were stationed, and attend an informal lunch in the officer's mess. (I wore the same suit to be married in about a year later).

We were all giddy with the flurry of attention and felt like real celebrities! It was the first experience for any of us to be waited on hand and foot like we were special.

I thought Ilene was the best looking of all of us girls. Bremerton's choice was cute, but I thought she was just a little full of herself. (What am I saying… we all were). The queen was as a queen should be, gracious and nurturing to all of us high school girls. I had never been to a beauty shop before and we all thought the hairstyles were a bit too glitzy so combed it all out (to our chaperone's dismay) and wore our hair to the parade looking like we normally do in a day at school. Same thing with the makeup; too much stuff on our faces looked and felt wrong. I mean, who wears bright red lipstick except Debbie Reynolds or Betty Grable?

The shoes were something we were stuck with and thank goodness we didn't have to do much walking. Those heels were three inches high, for Pete's sake! So we waddled into history looking much like what we really were, a bunch of scared, self-conscious teen agers thrust into a glam world. Nobody asked us for an autograph, we weren't offered any Hollywood acting contracts and our escorts didn't even want our phone numbers.

So much for the beauty queen circuit. It was fun and just another moment in time. I hope Ilene went on to enjoy her life after that momentous Navy Day in 1947. Our Sister Princess is with the angels now and doing the queen's wave! Goodbye, Sister Princess Ilene.