When I posted a photo of a couple of women all gussied up walking on the SEMO campus a few days ago, several readers speculated about why they were all dressed up.
Jean Lanham said she thought they were headed to a luncheon featuring a fashion show usually held on Valentine’s Day. Based on the hearts decorating the room and on some of the pins, I think she nailed it.
A pretty subdued group
Maybe I missed the happy times, but this gallery contains a a mighty somber looking crew. Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move around.
Ken,
The first picture and sixth are identical I believe and I recognize all the people in that picture. The cute brunet is Francie Hopkins CHS class of 65. Younger sister of murder mystery writer extraordinaire Judge Bill Hopkins. I believe Fancie was a Tri Delta so if the group are from her sorority that’s who they would be.
The handsome dark haired lady seated behind Francie is Mrs Farmer I believe. She was a teacher, lived out near my parents on or right off of Fairlane Drive 2-3 blocks from Alma Schrader grade school. She has a son Randy Farmer who was probably a 68 or 69 CHS grad, and he mistakenly shunned his Pike bid, and pledged Sigma Chi at Semo.
The other two ladies in picture #1 look very familiar but I wouldn’t remember names. Seems like they were librarians or worked in offices at Academic possibly.
The pretty brunet with the Rose in pic #9 looks very familiar. But she would have been someone well known on campus but I did not know her personally. A couple other young ladie’s faces look familiar but I did not know them well.
That’s all I’ve got about the show … except all those furs would have been cleaned and stored in the air-conditioned vault at Brune’s Cleaners and Furriers on Main street where the License Bureau later located. The L.B. used the Fur Vault for records storage. But I’m guessing the year of this Valentines Fashion Show was maybe 1965-67, and my dad would have been at W. E. Walker Insurance with Maurice Dunklin by then. Bill Tipton bought all of the dry cleaning equipment for his business Rigdon’s Cleaners – still located on Independence street near West End Blvd. Rigdon’s is now owned and operated by son Tom Tipton, and specializes in doing commercial linens for businesses and institutions.
B. Timeout.
The nature of the gallery program is to pick up every picture on the page, so if I used the photo as an individual shot, it will repeat in the gallery.
I thought that looked like Francie. Nice work.
Proceeds went to the American Heart Association or the local association. It was a very big deal in those days. Long before there were fundraisers every which way.
And sending the fur off to cold storage equally posh.
Francie Hopkins what pretty lady! It is hard to believe the Bill Hopkins came for the same gene pool…the ladies are looking serious because they were acting like adults, and adults in those days were serious! All these people do look familiar…
I’m pretty sure #4 is the Russian actress Marianna Aleksandrovna Vertinskaya. I don’t know what she was doing in Cape Girardeau, but it looks like she came straight from the set of Mne Dvadtsat Let (I am Twenty), which was released shortly before Khrushchev left office.
Yea John… that does look like Marianna, but From 1962 – 1966 she studied acting under A. Borisov at the Shchukin Theatrical School of the Vakhtangov Theatre in Moscow, graduating in 1967, as an actress. Even though she had been in numerous movies as a child actress. She also was in supporting roles as Lisa Bolkonskaya in War and Peace (1966), by director Sergey Bondarchuk and as Kitty in Anna Karenina (1967),so she would have been a little busy during the time of this fashion show.
I guess she could have been visiting her old summer camp “pen pal” in Cape that week, and Francie talked her into helping out with a good cause. Yea…. that’s probably what happened. Good catch John.
Oh, and PS Ken.
Did you notice that poor girl in the hat and vest in #5 coughing into her terribly deformed left hand? I know she was a Tri Sigma cause they reached out young ladies of good character that may be a little different.
I remember watching her out of my Pike House dorm window in front of the Tri Sig house next door. She was ambidextrous and could throw a perfect spiral with a football with either hand. We tried to recruit her for our Pike 3 intramural Fleetball team, but she was too shy.
ah…… those were Good Times!!