Eleanor’s Fashions

Eleanor Hafemeister was a fashionista in current terminology. From a very young age, she was obsessed with fashion; and we have a variety of photos of her in some very unique outfits. The sad, or let’s say ironic news is that Eleanor did end up having two daughters and we’re sure she had plans to hand over her love of fashion to them. But sadly neither of her daughters was interested in fashion. Both of the girls were very uninterested to the point that they dressed very frumpy from a very early age and it remained the rest of their lives. But luckily her daughter Beverly saw the value in some of Eleanor’s clothes and preserved them over her lifetime which has allowed us to have a nice collection of hats, jewelry, and other accouterments to fashion. We have displayed them in The Girl’s Room, along with Eleanor’s wedding gown, veil, and cake topper, and husband Ray’s wedding bowtie.

The museum is honored to have a few of the actual garments that Eleanor Hafemeister wore in the 1920s and 30s due to the loving preservation of her daughter Beverly. Her 1930s wedding gown is on permanent display at the museum. In the following photos: we have a model to show the dress as it is today and an actual photo of Eleanor wearing it on her wedding day. (Most of the dress is obscured.)

 We also have a beautiful yellow-beaded 1920s type flapper dress which is designed to show off the beadwork as you move in it. Another, very thin, gauze-like fabric which has a simple under slip has an array of orange poppy flowers on a yellow background is beautiful for a Sunday walk to church. The final dress is an ankle-length scoop neck summer dress of varying flowers in colors of orange. We could see this attractive dress worn to a garden party. 

Sadly, only the wedding gown is able to be displayed at the museum.  The other dresses will be donated. We are looking for an institution that could use them for fashion education. They are much too fragile for us to properly care for them.

We are very lucky to have about 20 hats of Eleanors. We just have a sprinkling of model photos displaying the hats, but we will be adding to this collection on the website soon.