Halloween past in suburban America

The Halloween costumes of my mother’s youth doubled down on her opera training. Here are three from her teenage years. They were living in the suburbs of Chicago at the time. Her mother’s artistic creativity is evident… not only in the costumes but in that painting on the wall in the background.

“Gypsy” or Carmen.

“Egyptian princess” or Aida.

“Japanese geisha” or The Mikado or perhaps Madama Butterfly.

It is amusing to me that, for such a French family, my mother and her parents also experienced the typical suburban life of 1950s America. Here they are with my great grandmother in Park Ridge, Illinois during one of her visits in the kitchen of their post-war bungalow in 1958.

Posing in a very serious fashion in some seriously 1950s fashion.

[Helene Lasserre, Elise Lasserre, Maria Baroni. Park Ridge, Illinois, 1959]

#Halloween #ParkRidge #painting #HélèneLasserre #Carmen #HélèneBaronnie #vintagephotographs #Aida #Mikado #costumes #Postworldwarbungalow #Chicago #EliseLasserre #Americana #1950s #MariaBaroni #ParkRidgeIL