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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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It was a perfectly extraordinary scene in Grand Central Station as the guests for the Smith wedding began to rush for the special section of the early train. When you got there you found that the railroad had put on a special section, because there were so many people going to the Smith wedding. I've never forgotten it because it's almost the last time I saw these, but the gentlemen were carrying leather hat boxes, cone shaped, with the cone cut off, to carry a silk hat topper. This was the mark of high style. When you were going to a magnificent thing where you had to take your topper with you, you didn't use it on the train because it was uncomfortable, but you carried it with you in a hat box built for the occasion.

The ladies were all dressed up. We all had on our best. I remember feeling like a very underdressed person in my best black silk dress with a black hat. I didn't feel dressed up at all, as I remember. I had on my best pearls and my grandmother's diamond pin and I still didn't feel dressed up enough for the occasion, because the train was loaded with dressed up people and all these silk hats in their boxes. I remember that so plainly because there were so many of them all over the train. As we neared Albany the gentlemen got their hats out, brushed them, polished





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