Musings and my Backstory ..

Musings - Born In The USA - My Backstory

Wyoming  - My Birthplace

It’s 1964. My family is living in Laramie, Wyoming. My dad is head of the Science Department at University of Wyoming teaching science classes on campus as well as at a PREP school the university runs.

My mother, during a lengthy stay in the psych ward of the hospital, discovers she is pregnant with me. This is not welcome news because the timing isn’t great. She wants another baby quite badly but she is severely ill with depression and has been struggling with mental illness for several years after having what they used to call “a nervous breakdown”. Her mental illness journey begins after my two older sisters are born. There is a 5 year age gap between me and my next oldest sister, with the eldest being two years her senior. This 5 year gap is intentional due to my mother’s illness. So the timing of my arrival is unplanned and comes as quite a shock.

Despite the unfortunate timing, my parents are delighted to be expecting again. My mother is released from the hospital and goes home to nest. Money is tight because they are living on a teacher’s salary but they somehow manage.

Sagittarius Baby and The Year of The Dragon

I burst into the world on 28 November 1964, a Sagittarius baby also born in the Year Of The (Wood) Dragon - fire signs that suit me perfectly.

According to my parents, the doctors and nurses rave about me being a beautiful baby (I mention this because it becomes part of a much bigger story and deep childhood wound later.) They bring me home swaddled in a pink gingham baby blanket with wide pink satin ribbon around the edges. (I still have it.) This is probably why pink has always been my favorite color.

As a baby, I am a big hit with the ladies at church. The only problem is for some strange reason, I disliked women! All women except my mother. So in order for a woman to hold me, she must keep a blanket over my head AT ALL TIMES to hide her identity from me.

Case in point: one Sunday whilst at church, a woman is tasked with holding me so my mother can play congregational hymns on the organ; my dad is teaching a men’s group so is also busy. This poor woman forgets the blanket-over-my-head rule and lets it slip off my head. It doesn’t take long before I realize the person holding me is NOT a member of my family NOR a man. I start wailing (the story goes you could hear me screaming down halls and throughout the building!) I am not sure who helps her but they take me to the only man, other than my father, that I absolutely adore. His name is Cecil Cupps, father to 6 boys and a scoutmaster with my dad. Once they take me to him, I instantly go quiet. He holds me the remainder of the meeting sans blanket on my head. My poor parents.This strange preference becomes legendary in my family for years but one solid truth still remains - I have always adored men. They are fascinating and interesting creatures.

And Then There Are Four

Two years later, my little sister is born and our family of four girls is complete. She too, is unplanned but again, my parents are thrilled. They even hope for a boy this time. My mother has complications with this pregnancy so she spends more time in bed, preparing for delivery. She almost bleeds out post delivery and struggles with her health for the next year. Finally, they decide she needs a hysterectomy. This is welcome relief from all the pain and struggle she experienced from the previous year.

A Move To Oregon and Friday Nights At The Big O

I’m nearly 3 years old when my dad enrolls in a doctoral program to earn a PhD in Oceanography. So we move to Corvallis, Oregon (and survive a near fatal car crash in the process). I am very sick the entire 4 years we live there and even get my tonsils out at age 3. (I am STILL allergic to Oregon.) My father attends Oregon State University whilst managing a restaurant in town called (and I’m not even joking) The Big ‘O’...it was FABULOUS! I think I’m around 4 or 5 when I first recall going there.

As manager, my dad seems very important when we visit and I love it. This is how I remember it:

The Big O is a drive-in restaurant much like the old A&W drive-in, brightly lit and colorful. Once you park your car in one of the designated “stalls”, you shut the car off, roll your window down about half way so the tray of food hangs from the edge of the window, the tray’s “feet” using the window itself as a brace to keep it securely in place. Then yelling through a loudspeaker, you place your order. Yelling is necessary or they can’t hear or understand you. It is all part of the fun!

When the food is ready, a pretty carhop (aka waitress/server) wearing short shorts, a tank top, an apron for holding napkins and straws, wearing roller skates, rolls over to your car. And with some crazy skilled precision, she skates whilst carrying ONE-HANDED a tray FILLED with heaping piles of burgers, fries and chocolate malteds. She attaches the tray to your window, makes change from a silver metal stacked coin changer strapped around her waist then skates away as you dive into the food.

I especially love it when we get to see the other carhops flying past the cars as they deliver food hot off the grill, wondering how they don’t fall or crash into each other. I even wonder if I will work there when I get older.

By now, my dad has a Chrysler convertible so I have fond memories of dropping the top on a Friday night, taking a drive to the restaurant and eating that delicious food on warm summer Oregon nights.

LSD, Hippies And Bikers Oh MY!

Being on Oregon State University (OSU) campus as a kid was a TRIP (pun intended!). The hippies and bikers terrify me (my dad rode a bike and I absolutely LOVED riding on the back of his bike, wearing his large helmet on my tiny head, as he drove me around the block before going off to school. So it wasn’t the bike but the DUDE!)

Yet my little girl sensitives kick into overdrive and I intuitively know there is something very off about some of those people. They really do scare me.

Mind you, in the 60’s in Oregon, LSD is all the rage and being so young and impressionable,  it seems like every day there is a story on the news about a girl thinking she can fly out of her college dorm room or from a tree but ends up “flying” to her death instead. It leaves a horrible stain on my childhood. I learn very early in my life that the world is not a safe place.

 My intuitive nature is very strong as a kid. I tell people things, things about them I shouldn’t know, and that scare them but I don’t understand why they’re scared. They accuse me of making up stories, calling me a liar or dismissing me. Their fear and resistance begins to feel like rejection so I learn to retreat into myself. Eventually it feels like I’m carrying around a hundred pounds of wet sand on my back because despite all the things I sense, feel and “know”, I have no voice. I feel isolated and weird. It’s YEARS before I understand why I’m so sensitive (but not without a lot of criticism and bullying from other people along the way). So to protect myself from mental and emotional harm from those casting aspersions, I turn it off. Over time, I succeed in completely shutting down this part of who I am. It is decades before I once again reconnect with this part of me.

And Then It’s ALLL About The GO-GO Boots

I’m in kindergarten when I discover black patent go-go boots with the zip alllllll the way up the back and the chunky block heel. I NEED a pair of these boots so badly. I BEG my mother to let me have a pair. She tells me I’m too young. I tell her that a girl in my class has a pair. She is unmoved. This argument becomes a pattern between us for the next 10 or so years as I try to express my own sense of style against the controlling nature of my mother. She means well but she is uncomfortable with my “sophisticated” style aesthetic. She uses that word a lot but I am too little to even know what she means. She insists I abide by her choices but I am not having it. It really does become a battle of the wills over and over again. What can I say? I am my mother’s daughter. I think stubbornness is learned as much as it might be innate, but I digress.

I remember the shift dresses of the 60’s, pale lipstick, winged eyeliner, the lashes, headbands, teased/ratted hair, side sweeping bangs (fringe), the bright colors and low slung belts around slender hips. Everything is groovy, baby!

It’s when I’m around 6 years old that I become obsessed with Agent 99 on the 60’s hit tv show Get Smart. She has the most amazing wardrobe (a favorite being a black leather catsuit that zips up the front with a low slung belt, black leather pointed toe, high heeled boots, high ponytail swinging as she walks with winged liner perfection over thick lashes - swooon!)

A New Career, Major Surgery And The Place I call HOME

My dad’s career trajectory changes dramatically whilst living in Oregon. He jumps ship (quite literally because he gets terribly seasick on the research boats off the Alaskan coast - not good if you need samples off the ocean floor!) and abandons his doctorate program. He decides a career in business will earn him more money than that of a professor anyway. There is mounting student loan debt as well as medical bills due to my mother’s ongoing mental and physical health issues. He is offered a job as an insurance sales agent for Prudential Life Insurance Company. In his first year, he earns five times his professor’s salary. That is all the proof he needs to know he made the right decision. (He finally pays off his student loans and medical bills whilst I’m in high school.) I remember our first Christmas after my dad becomes a sales agent. It seems like presents and packages are everywhere. And my parents seem happy; really happy.

Then, four years after moving to Oregon, Prudential transfers my dad from there to Billings, Montana. I’m in first grade. For my parents, this is coming home, as they both grow up here. This is also where my health takes another serious downturn and for the next several years, I am in and out of hospitals, including multiple surgeries. It is a very difficult time for me and our family. It is also the first time my dad collapses from the strain of it all.

I am recovering from major surgery. That night, after coming home from the hospital, I am very sick from the anesthesia they use to sedate me. After work, my dad comes into my room to check on me. He immediately sees I’m not doing well. We talk for a few seconds and the next thing I know, he makes a horrible sound and is now lying on top of me, unconscious.

His concern for me triggers a heart event. He collapses on top of me as I lay in my bed, watching his eyes roll back so all I see are the whites of his eyes, then he hits his head on my bedroom wall. All I can do is cry whilst screaming “daddy! daddy!” I’m 7.

I remember the weight of his body across my legs and how I feel pinned by him. I remember the sheer panic and my mother screaming; her brother, my Uncle Dale, who’s tasked with caring for me post op, is trying to manage me AND my mother whilst talking to the medics.

I remember the ambulance sirens and EMS men swarming into my room, pulling him off me, putting him on a gurney before wheeling him out of the house and loading him into the ambulance. I remember watching the ambulance drive away with my dad from the front window; neighbors gathering on our front lawn, wondering if my dad is going to die.

I can barely stand and I’m in so much pain. My uncle carries me to my room and puts me back into bed. But somehow, as I lie there staring at the wall where my dad  hit his head, I KNOW he is going to be ok. I FEEL it. That “knowing” gives me some peace so I can rest.

Later, the hospital releases my dad without meds or need for further intervention. They say it is stress induced. That night, I throw up for 14 hours straight. My body is completely spent and I have nothing left in my system. I’m white as a sheet and extremely weak. I will never have that particular anesthesia again.

Years later, doctors find a scar on my dad’s heart. He’d had a heart attack. This may have been when it happened.

Montana Will Always Be HOME

We spend roughly 8 or so months in Billings before my dad is transferred yet again. This time, we move to Great Falls, Montana so he can manage an office there. We live here for 8 years whilst my dad enjoys great success in his career. And it is in Great Falls where my most cherished childhood memories live. For me, Montana will ALWAYS be home. (And it’s where the origin story of my dad’s family lives and the trauma surrounding my dad begins).

By the time I’m a teenager in the 70’s living in Great Falls, a whole new fashion world opens up to me. It’s whilst living here that I learn to sew at the age of 8, take endless sewing classes and declare my ambition to become a fashion designer.

Welcome To FARGO

My dad’s career takes yet another turn when he accepts a job offer to run an agency for Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company in Fargo, North Dakota. (Montana and North Dakota used to be horrible state rivals so the teasing I get from my friends about moving to Fargo from Montana is terrible.) This is by far, the most traumatic move for me. I hate nearly every second of the four years I live here and cannot wait to get out. I try to make the most of it so I become a theater kid during my freshman year of high school and continue till graduation. It's here where I learn my love for the stage and performing. I have the best time being part of that world. (And yes, the movie FARGO is a very accurate depiction of what it is like to live there during the late 70’s and early 80’s - I also acquired the accent; something that dismayed my entire family! Thankfully I lost it once I went away to school but my kids ask me to resurrect it from time to time just for their amusement.)

By now I’ve been sewing for years and make nearly everything I wear. Sewing a new dress till 3 am on a school night (in the basement) for an event the next evening becomes my escape. It’s where I am the happiest and away from the stressors of my life. And there are many.

Despite the fact I actually graduate high school in 1983, the 70’s feels more like MY decade. I think because the 70’s is when I have the happiest childhood memories (and is still the one I adore the very most and connect with the deepest). 

As soon as I graduate high school in June 1983, I head off to Idaho for design school in August that same year (and meet my husband just before I graduate).

My Brand’s “Style Voice” - Borrowed From The Past And Inspired By My Mother

The 60’s and 70’s just hit deep into my soul over other decades and yet my style aesthetic continues evolving even now. I guess it’s because during my teen years and then later in design school, I discover my own inner hippie whilst at the same time developing a more discerning eye for the refined elegance and swankiness of 1930’s fashion. Those bias cut silk gowns just speak to me.

Looking back, I am not a big fan of 80’s style because it seems to miss the luxuriousness and romance from earlier decades. Where is the sense of FREEDOM? It all seems too restrictive to me. The skirts are either too bulky or stick straight; blouses have giant shoulder pads with equally giant bows at the neck. Dynasty and Dallas are huge hits on TV with Nolan Miller at the helm, creating iconic looks and an image not seen in earlier decades. But to me, glamour may be all the rage but the innocence is gone.

It is the era of the movie AND the lifestyle of 9 to 5; career women wearing sneakers with their suits walking to work; all that effort to seem masculine or risk not being taken seriously in the workforce. A movie like Working Girl could not be made today.

My ONE Memorable 80’s Outfit

My husband and I are married a couple years and I am working as a hairstylist making great money on the campus of Washington State University whilst my husband is earning his Electrical Engineering degree.

In our little trailer’s spare bedroom, I make a navy blue linen suit that becomes a huge hit every time I wear it. I even add a Chanel style white silk flower “broach” to the jacket’s front left shoulder. It’s probably the best thing I make during the 80’s. At the time, it seems a little unusual for where we are living but as a hairstylist (that’s a story for another time), “unusual” suits me just fine.

Instead of slacks, I make pleated shorts with a cuff at the hem in white linen with a navy pinstripe. The jacket is hip length, double breasted navy linen with gold brass buttons; the lapels have oversized points with a notched collar that I adore. With elbow length sleeves, the jacket is perfectly fitted with just a little padding at the shoulder. I love that suit so much. Maybe I need to resurrect it. I wore it for years.

So you see? Whilst my brand is largely inspired by the fashions of the 60’s and 70’s - a time that may not exist anymore but decades in which I feel deeply connected - I also draw inspiration from the 30’s, my Wyoming and (western) Montana roots, music, a bit of glam, a little edginess, my heart horse Cash, the gorgeous Southern California coast, and of course, my beautiful mother, to whom the entire brand is dedicated. May she forever remain in my heart.

I miss you, Mom.

Love,

Your PJ

June Mary Elery 1936-2020.

TE

xx