Tales from Argentina – The Dressmaker (Part 4 of 5)

Link to "The Dressmaker" Part 1 - Early Struggles:            Click HERE

Link to "The Dressmaker" Part 2 - Pastures New:             Click HERE

Link to "The Dressmaker" Part 3 - Doña Sol's daughter:  Click HERE

The Struggles Return

For Doña Sol the good times came to an end in early 1949.  Juliette was close to giving birth to her first child when Don Pedro died suddenly on New Year’s Day of an excess of festive spirit.  He had grown in corpulence over the years, and particularly enjoyed the round of socialising over the Christmas and New Year period.  Unfortunately his heart didn’t. 

The doctor who attended at his bedside knew the Quintana family and was aware of the irregular situation in which Don Pedro found himself, and after certifying his death he alerted the Quintanas.  The law in Argentina is strict on the matter of the burial of the dead – it must be carried out within 24 hours.  So when several hours later there was a knock on the door and two men said they had come to collect the body, she let them in presuming them to be from the funeral parlour.  They weren’t.  The men who stood before her were Don Pedro’s sons.  

They removed his body and told her curtly that she was most definitely not invited to the funeral, and neither was her daughter.  She never heard from the family again, or found out where he had been buried, though it was reasonable to suppose that he would join the family pantheon at the Recoleta, the Catholic cemetery for the well-to-do in downtown Buenos Aires. 










Juliette’s little son Tomás was born 10 days later. 

Fortunately, from a practical point of view Doña Sol’s talents were unaffected by these sad events, and with her established clientele it made little difference.  Her workload if anything became heavier, and there were weddings where she made the dresses for the bride, her mother, the bridesmaids and various other female guests - up to seven on one occasion, and without help from assistants, with whose services she had dispensed some years earlier.  She continued in the flat for the next 25 years until it was evident that she could no longer live alone. 

In the meantime Juliette’s life had taken many knocks.  She had a second son, Martín, and tragedy struck when her sons were 2 and 4.  Her husband went out one day to buy cigarettes, and never returned.  She learned later that he was alive and well, but just did not wish to have the responsibility of a family any longer.  Perhaps it was this aspect of his character which old Don Pedro had sensed when he had objected to her marrying him.  Certainly there were parallels with his own history.  The boys did not see their father again until they were teenagers.

At first life was a desperate struggle – there was no social welfare system in the country at that time for someone in her situation.  Her young sons unwittingly gave her the strength to carry on; they stood staunchly by her and when they went out together it was noticed that they unconsciously surrounded her as if they were her bodyguards.   She got by giving English lessons, and scrimped and saved. 

And there was a happy ending.  A few years later she met Fernando, a gentle, wise and deeply caring man with endless patience who truly understood the pain these three generations had suffered. 

When my friend knew them in the 60’s she found them to be a happy and lively family who loved to argue.  They all held passionate opinions about everything, and while the old lady Doña Sol, Juliette and the boys would snipe back and forth and either break into laughter or storm off in a huff, gentle Fernando’s quiet voice would every so often reduce them all to silence with his exquisitely timed common sense summary of the situation.  With a word he could make them all slow down and think about what they were saying; it was a joy to watch. 

She told me that if they were gathered together in some public place – a restaurant, or perhaps an ice-cream parlour, Doña Sol and Juliette would comment to each other about the garments worn by the unknown women around them.  From babyhood Juliette had absorbed the concepts of style, colour, fabric and quality of cut, and their comments were invariably unfavourable on a scale from negative to scathing - 

Doña Sol:  Look at the blouse on that woman!

Friend:  Lovely colour...

Juliette: (impatient click of tongue) That’s the least of it.  Just look at those shoulders, they’ve been cut all WRONG.

Doña S:  (dismissive wave) They’ve tried to cut the material on the cross, clearly didn’t have a CLUE.

Juliette:  And that dress on your left, it’s TERRIBLE.

Friend:  She’s a bit heavy to be wearing that style...

Doña S:  Oh, she’s as fat as a cow.  It needed a fuller cut under the bodice.

Juliette:  And the COLOURS!  She looks like a set of traffic lights.

(The names and some of the places have been changed.  All images in the main post are from Google images)

Part 5 (final):  The summing up

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Photo Finish:

from Lonicera's non-digital archives

Exmoor - Lorna Doone Country
Winter

Robber's Bridge

Experiment:

The stream looking normal...

Argh! How it looks after fiddling about with filters...

(I refer to the filters on the lens, at the time of shooting the

picture, involving about 5 exposures with a different coloured

filter each time - a laborious process to go through

just for a laugh...)

...whereas this one was achieved on the computer by clicking

a button - and in fact is my favourite of the three.

A freezing cold morning,

with pretty icy pictures to be found by a stream...

...which I had underexposed and they remained in the slide box

for nearly 15 years - until I scanned them onto my computer

and gave them light - and life.

Very grainy film, but I like the subtlety of the colours.

Link to Part 5:  Click HERE

Back to the top:  Click HERE

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Tales from Argentina – The Dressmaker (Part 3 of 5)

Link to "The Dressmaker" Part 1 - Early Struggles:  Click HERE

Link to "The Dressmaker" Part 2 - Pastures New  :  Click HERE

Doña Sol's Daughter

They settled into the routine whereby Sol rose early to start her working day at the sewing machine while Don Pedro emerged mid morning, dressed smartly, and would disappear to his club with a jaunty step, swinging his silver cane and doffing his hat to the ladies he encountered on his way. 

In June 1927 they had a daughter, whom they named Adelina, after his mother.  Curiously María Adelina was also the name of his youngest child by Victoria, his lawful wife.  She was was by now a young woman of 23 years of age, and this must have rubbed further salt into the wound of his deserted consort.   It was surprising that Doña Sol should have agreed to this name, unless she knew nothing about its associations.

Little Adelina was a winsome child with dark hair and brown eyes, the apple of her father’s eye, and she adored him too.  Sometimes he stayed at home to play with her; she was his toy, and his pet name for her was Perlita (little pearl). 

Every birthday for many years he gave her a tiny gold medal with a little seed pearl in the middle, and on it engraved her pet name and the date; years later she had them all linked on a gold bracelet chain – which she never wore, but never explained why.

Doña Sol’s business prospered and she was soon able to afford to employ two seamstresses to help her.  She had some very fine ladies among her clientele and on more than one occasion made gowns for the wife of the president of the day.  When a new president is sworn in (usually on 25th May, the most important public holiday in Argentina, being as it is the anniversary of the date in 1810 when Argentines declared their intention to be free of the Spanish yoke, and established home rule) it is the custom even today for a special gala concert to be held at the Teatro Colón in the evening.  On one of these occasions Doña Sol made the dress which was worn by the wife of the president.   She was immensely proud of this achievement, and in addition it was a source of great secret satisfaction to her that she had been able to conceal from all these society ladies the fact that she did not read or write.

However, the twenty-four years they lived together in the flat were not without their ups and downs.  After having Adelina she lost fourteen further children – but not due to miscarriages.  It is not known why she had so many abortions, aside from the obvious factor that birth control was out of bounds for practising Catholics.  Perhaps Don Pedro didn’t want to have to cope with the added family opprobrium, the expense or the responsibility of starting the process of bringing up children all over again.  It is possible that his attitude towards his young mistress was that often sported by pet owners – let the female pet have one litter so she gets the instinct out of her system, then stop her having any more.  Who knows?  It is astonishing that her body was able to sustain such turmoil.

He had burned his boats when he opted to make her his mistress; he did not work and there was no further income from the family.  They lived on her earnings as a dressmaker, and during the good years there was enough to be able to pay for a succession of governesses.  Don Pedro did not wish his precious Perlita to mix with the common herd, as he declared to Sol when after a week at an expensive private primary Catholic school he removed his six-year old daughter one day and refused to let her return.  It is likely that he had either seen the signs of her being bullied by other children or foresaw that she would be singled out by the parents because of the circumstances of her birth.  So instead there was a French governess from whom she learned French, and an English governess who taught her English.  The English lady read stories to her, one of which featured a little girl called Juliette. 

At this point Adelina decided that one day she would change her name to Juliette.  Although in later years she never explained the reasoning behind this decision, there were several factors at play here.  She was not permitted to use her father’s surname, Quintana – she went by the name of Adelina Vázquez - and this hurt may have been compounded by the fact that she also shared her first name with a half sister she had never been allowed to meet, and that they had both been named after a grandmother she would never be allowed to call her own, and who manifestly showed no interest in her.  Don Pedro’s family would have put much pressure to bear on him never to recognise legally an illegitimate child, not to mention ending up with two offspring with virtually the same name – a further unnecessary humiliation for his abandoned wife Victoria.  

At any rate the governesses left her with a positive legacy – a love and respect for both the British and French cultures, and a drive to learn as much as she could on a variety of subjects, which remained with her for the rest of her life.

Adelina – now Juliette to her friends if not to her family – grew up in a secure environment where she knew she was loved; she would not have understood until she was a young woman the implications of her birth in the class-conscious Buenos Aires of those days.  She saw her mother’s smart and wealthy society clients come and go, heard their little cries of delight as Doña Sol’s magic touch transformed them from dowdy matrons into evening sirens, and soaked up the kind words and little token gifts which they regularly bestowed upon her. 

She was a studious child, thirsty for knowledge, and read avidly.  While at a local college studying secretarial subjects her striking good looks were spotted by a young man who was studying commercial English.  He swept her off her feet, and she married young, at 20, despite the objections of Don Pedro, who was now in his late seventies.  However his little Perlita was soon able to persuade him to agree to what she wanted.

Contemporary image from the internet (1948, Argentina)

(The names and some of the places have been changed. All illustrations are from the internet)
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Part 4:  The good times come to an end.
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Photo Finish:
from Lonicera's digital archives

Patagonia, Argentina

Twilight in Sierra Colorada, Río Negro

Fruit Plantations, Río Negro

(The answer, my friend...)

Last year's drought

Estancia Maquinchao

Laguna Ñe Luan

Go to Part 4 of "The Dressmaker"

- The Struggles Return:  Click HERE

Back to the top:  Click HERE

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Tales from Argentina – The Dressmaker (Part 2 of 5)

Link to The Dressmaker Part 1 of 5 - "Early Struggles":  Click HERE
Link to The Dressmaker Part 3 of 5 - "Doña Sol's Daughter":  Click HERE

Pastures New

Sol grew into a very attractive young woman with light eyes which sparkled when she laughed, and long brown hair which she wore in a bun at the nape of her neck.  She had many admirers, one of whom was a Spanish lad named José; her parents particularly favoured him, perhaps because of his nationality, although they knew he had a temper.  He was very much in love with her, but she didn’t return his affection in quite the same way.  She found his passionate and intense nature tiresome and his poor prospects disappointing, and while it pleased her to have a partner to take her to the cinema occasionally, she did her best to hold him at arms length.   

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This state of affairs continued until her mid-twenties, when early one fresh spring morning when the jacarandas were in flower either side of the main avenues which led into the centre of the city, she made her way by tram to a haberdashery to purchase sewing materials for her employer. 

Contemporary Tram

Another customer was already there before her.  Prosperous and well-connected, Don Pedro Quintana was in his mid fifties, and as he purchased a bolt of cloth for his wife he noticed the young and shapely Soledad at the next counter. 

 

He admired her petite profile for a while, taking in her light brown hair and dazzling smile, and as she turned towards him to look at something on a shelf above his head he saw her fine cheekbones, hazel eyes and creamy skin.  From that moment onwards he was smitten, and hurriedly paid for his goods to wait for her outside.  As she emerged from the shop he approached her, politely doffing his hat with a smile, and engaged her in conversation.

What Soledad saw was a smartly dressed middle-aged gentleman inclined to corpulence who sported a silver cane and a smart fedora, wore a gold ring on one of his carefully manicured hands - and had good teeth.  Accustomed to sizing up people at a glance, what she saw was prosperity, good living and (probably) healthy habits – everything she yearned for.

For someone in her reduced circumstances, what came next was predictable and not unwelcome – it was clear he wanted her as his mistress, and the prospect of going from penury to some degree of security, even if not long term, was irresistible.  With charm and modesty she told him that he would have to talk to her elder brothers, and some days later a meeting took place.  Her brothers satisfied themselves that he could afford to keep her and that she would have her own home, before agreeing to his terms. 

A week later she had packed up her few belongings and said her goodbyes to her parents and her dismayed employer, setting off with her brothers to the apartment in the smart part of town where Don Pedro had rented a property in preparation for her arrival.  Well and truly in love, he was waiting for her in a sitting room full of red roses.

Her employer was not the only dismayed party – Don Pedro’s wife Victoria, a well-known society lady, had to endure the humiliation of being told by her husband that he was leaving her to go and live with someone half his age. 

He had assured her she would want for nothing (except his presence of course, and she had never had much of that in recent years) but the issue was really about going out and about in genteel Buenos Aires society with people whispering pityingly about her behind her back, not to mention her family who ‘had always known he was bad through and through’ and whose disapproval she had ignored when she married him.  They had four children – two daughters and two sons ranging in age from 33 to 21, and he may well have also been a grandfather by then.

Meanwhile, Sol’s Spanish suitor José was inconsolable and it was unfortunate that in the circles he moved, guns were the means of settling old scores.  He had no plans to harm the woman he loved however; instead he turned a gun on himself, putting a bullet through his temple.  He died instantly.  Sol was by then far removed from the barrio where they had lived, and she only heard second-hand from her youngest brother that his family held her responsible.

Don Pedro Quintana was a member of the Quintana de Aldama family, well-to-do members of Argentine society, some of whose ancestors during the 19th century had colonised the eastern section of the province of Córdoba, north of Buenos Aires; there is in fact a town named after them.  Thus by leaving his family and setting up home with a mistress he became the black sheep of the family, and henceforth anything he did – or didn’t - was merely living up to their low expectations. 

The regular income he received from his family ceased, and they ignored Sol’s very existence.  It was a brave move for a family man in his fifties, and only one close friend from his old life kept in touch with them, Coronel Jorge Espuela, a much respected military and political figure of the time after whom he had named one of his children.  None of his other friends and relations ever visited them at the apartment.

Downtown Buenos Aires in the 1920s

Sol never looked back.  She settled happily into the unaccustomed comfort of a spacious apartment with a live-in maid.  Don Pedro had never worked and they needed an income; idleness was not in her nature so before long she had started up her own dressmaking business at the flat.  He was a man-about-town with many contacts, and a word in the right ear got her plenty of commissions among the society ladies with whom he mingled.   At a time when Paris fashions were slavishly followed, the word soon spread that the modest little mouse living with him was a gifted seamstress, and while they may have been scathing about her social status behind her back, they recognised her unique abilities and were happy to offer her their patronage. 

(The names and some of the places have been changed.)

Part 3:  Doña Sol’s daughter

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Photo Finish:

from Lonicera's non-digital archives

Fauna & Flora

Oleander

Bluebells (Spanish variety)

Guanacos, Patagonia, Argentina

The only true British primrose

Back to the top:  Click HERE

Go to Part 3 of 5 "Doña Sol's Daughter":  Click HERE

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Tales from Argentina – The Dressmaker (Part 1 of 5)

This is a true story told to me by a friend, which I am recounting in five parts.  It is not strictly speaking a biography, and I regret that I have no photos of the personalities involved so have used contemporary ones I found on the internet instead.

Early Struggles

Doña Sol Vázquez knew she had a magic touch with fabric.  One dispassionate glance at the wealthy client before her, holding a fashion magazine with the picture of the desired dress, and she could bring her back to reality at a stroke: the shade clashed with her client’s colouring; the glittering features of the material were far too young for her, and so on.  Above all she was a genius when it came to cutting cloth – the imperfections of the human form held no mysteries for her.   A lopsided shoulder?   An outsize bottom? A breast larger than its companion... or just the one plus a prosthesis?  Her scissors never faltered as they snipped their way along intricate patterns and through fabulously expensive georgettes, brocades and satins. 

Her clientele knew her and put up with her tut-tutting and ruthless appraisals – a garment made by Doña Sol would last for years and, provided she was given a free rein, would be of a classic style that would serve the wearer for a very long time and draw many admiring glances from other women, who were much tougher judges than the men.  She knew she was good and she was confident of her abilities – yet it was the only aspect of her life where she felt in control.  There would have been no point in giving her patterns, measurements or instructions – Doña Sol could neither read nor write.

She was born María de la Soledad Vázquez Montero in the city of Logroño, north-eastern Spain  in the year 1900, ...

Bridge into Logroño across the Ebro river

...and was also known as Sol.  As was customary, she used both her parents’ names, Vázquez being her father’s and Montero her mother’s. 

Logroño, early XX Century picture

Logroño, early XX Century picture

Logroño is now a city of some 150,000 inhabitants, equidistant with San Sebastián to the north and Pamplona to the east; it was once a part of the ancient kingdom of Castile and at the time of her birth boasted a population of 20,000.  It was an important crossing point of the river Ebro and one of the stages for those making the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in the north west of the country. 

Market in Logroño, early XX Century picture

The Vázquez’ were one of many Spanish families who emigrated to Latin America looking for better prospects, and Argentina was a popular destination.  In the 80-odd years between 1857 and 1935 Argentina took in 2.5 million Spanish immigrants, among whom were the Vázquez family in around 1907. Sol was the youngest child of seven siblings, with the eighth being born after their arrival in Buenos Aires and thereafter her favourite brother.  They settled in La Paternal, a very modest suburb of the city near a deep stream, the Maldonado. 

Arroyo Maldonado

The shops were on the other side of the river, and it was the little girl’s job to fetch their daily bread from the bakery, which meant wading across the waterway in both directions.  It was frequently in flood, and the precious bag of bread had to be held high over her head.  Times were hard and her parents could not afford for any of them to go to school.  Her brothers went out to work with their father, and she and her sister stayed at home to work with their mother.  There was no time for play, there were no dolls, but her one enjoyment was when she repaired her brothers’ torn clothes – her mother was proud of her youngest daughter’s neat stitching and invisible mending.   She therefore never had any formal schooling, and throughout her life was only ever able to scrawl “SV” as a form of signature.
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Bridge over the Maldonado built long after the Vázquez family lived by its banks 

When she was a teenager she became very ill with lung disease as a result of the daily crossing of the Maldonado stream, and her carelessness about the subsequent drying out of her clothes – or perhaps she simply had no other garments to wear.  When she started to recover her father was forced to be ruthless:  if she could no longer run errands she would have to learn a trade.  He apprenticed her to a dressmaker, and here at last her luck changed for a time. 

She learned the rudiments of sewing and dressmaking, picking it up quickly and often experimenting by herself.  She showed great promise, and the dressmaker considered her to be her star pupil.  To encourage her she gave her increasingly difficult work to do, and there came a day when her employer knew she could trust her to finish off the dresses which the older woman made for her well-to-do clients.  The girl’s wages were very modest, but it was clear to her parents that this was where her abilities lay, so other than to ensure that she gave them all her earnings, returning a few pennies to her each month, they were content to leave her alone.

(The names have been changed.)

Part 2:  Sol leaves home

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Photo Finish:
from Lonicera's non-digital archives

Flora & Fauna

Go to Part 2 of 5 - "On to Pastures New":  Click HERE

Back to the top:  Click HERE

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