A skirt with a past — and a future

What was once Ednah's became Louise's, then Barbara's, and now Melissa Barber's.

By Barbara Kate Repa

When retrieving the dry cleaning recently, I ran into an old friend: a brightly colored skirt, freshly cleaned and snaking down the automated trolley at Perfect Cleaners on Fillmore.

The unusual combination of colors, the nubby silk fabric and the jaunty scalloped waistband all were unmistakable. It had been my skirt before I donated it to the Victorian House Thrift Shop a few months earlier.

I had gotten the skirt years before from a friend, Louise Baldridge, who was in her late 80s when we met, but still spry and spirited and quick with a story — many of which involved one of her three former husbands.

“I always loved the rascals,” she said.