What do you with your travel souvenirs after you get home? For me the trick is finding something that I will actually use, something that will remind me in a glance that I had been away. This couple (Grace and Bill Schnoberger according to the photo) obviously loaded up on some stereotypical knickknacks after a trip to Mexico. They are proudly displaying them here, but I doubt that the big sombrero entered Grace’s hat collection or that the plaster bull found a place in their living room.
If you look closely, though, you will see that Grace is wearing silver Mexican jewelry–earrings, a necklace (partially hidden by the hat band), and two bracelets. It’s hard to see the detail and probably the pieces are not valuable collectables from Taxco, Mexico’s silver capital. But if she kept wearing them after this photo session, it does show that Grace had found elements of Mexican handicrafts to enliven her style.
I found Grace and Bill on Find-a-Grave — no children, so I wonder who had the photo from their Mexican trip. …. In the early 1950’s my mother had a red wool/felt jacket with Mexican applique. It made an impression on me because it was so “scenic,” like a picture book. The jacket was long gone by the time I reached adolescence– but she did have a tooled leather purse that I used for a while. My Mexican tourist purchase was a muslin dress with an embroidered yoke. I no longer have it.
Fun fact… When the author of this blog travels, she’s usually looking for fabric and buttons. No hats, just more to add to her ‘stash.’