This is nothing more than a front yard snapshot of 1920 vintage, but when I was a child in the 1950s such rigid and impossibly stern, birdlike little ladies were still fixtures in nearly any church community, somewhat scary to children but invariably kind and caring underneath their forbidding exteriors.
If there was anything that needed doing in the community that they thought worthwhile, it would get done and a discrete thank you was all that was required. They insisted on respect and a degree of decorum that was not forthcoming from everyone; time had left them stranded in a culture that tried their considerable patience.
These two sisters or close relations have been careful with their resources and though their dress is somber it clearly makes a statement of their financial status as independent women. They took being good hostesses to heart in homes that had a dark museum-like feel – and without a speck of dust to be seen! Even as a child I sensed their considerable pleasure when I admired and commented on their interesting possessions.
You would think I knew these ladies, but from my own status of certain years I look at their kind with an affection that would have surprised them.