Figure 1.--This snapshot shows Horace W. Close with his violin. We do not know where in America he lived. Horace seems quite proud of his violin. He looks to be abour 10-years old. He wears a white shirt with a squared-ended tie. Note the sleeves. He wears knickers with patterned knee socks.

This white-bordered, smooth eddged snapshot shows Horace W. Close with his violin. We do not know where in America he lived. Horace seems quite proud of his violin. He looks to be abour 10-years old. He wears a white shirt with a squared-ended tie. Note the sleeves. I am not entirely sure how they are done. Did mother sew on long sleeves to a short-sleeved shirt. Or did Horace have a band to keep up his sleeve. Perhaps he wore this while practicing his violin. He may have been on his way to a recital. A reader writes, "I think I can explain the shirt sleeves. Horace has apparently inherited the shirt of an older brother with much longer arms, so mother has taken a tuck in the sleeves to make them shorter for Horace but in a way that will allow her to remove the stitches and restore the original length when that becomes necessary--either because Horace will have grown or because some other boy might inherit the shirt. In the 1930s frugality was still the rule in most families and of course this was the Depression era in America." He wears knickers with patterned knee socks. The snapshot is undated, but the knee socks as well as the low-cut shoes help to date it to the 1930s. Long stockings were more common in the 20s.

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Created: 7:02 AM 8/14/2010
Last edited: 11:37 AM 8/14/2010