This must have been in the late 1960s. Mom being rather cavalier with her mink. I’m not sure what happened to the hat. That’s in our living room. Love the glasses; she didn’t wear glasses until she was in her 60s. I wish I could find the one photo I remember of her wearing it in the 1950s.
Mom had a mink.
Now before the animal lovers jump down my throat, let me say that today I would agree that raising and killing mink or any other creature for purely cosmetic reasons, for reasons of vanity is wrong. I know there are still mink ranchers out there and I would not put them out of business for what they do. I just don’t condone it for myself.
But Mom had a mink.
It was a mink stole.
Dad must have scraped together his shekels back in the ‘50s and somehow had purchased it for her. This was no cheap mink. It was what’s known in the trade as Blackglama, the highest quality mink in the world. You can check out their website. They assure us that in their process of creating beautiful garments “the highest standard of humane care is utilized.” One would have to investigate to see if that is true.
Nonetheless, Mom had a mink stole.
Now, Mom and Dad didn’t go out on the town a lot, but when they did have an occasion that called for it, Mom would don her mink stole, put on a pair of long gloves, and out they would go. I thought she was beautiful.
And rather than just allowing that mink stole to just hang around in the closet for the winter, Mom would put on a suit for Sunday worship and wear the mink over it, along with her long gloves to match the suit. As I recall, she kept the mink on throughout the worship service. I thought she was beautiful in it.
It was a gorgeous mink stole, even on a kitchen chair by the dishwasher.
Years and years passed and I forgot about the mink stole. I grew up and moved out. I don’t know if or when Mom ever wore the mink again. Then it became politically incorrect for her to wear it and she became fearful that it might somehow be ruined if an animal rights activist saw her in it.
Fast forward to the late ‘80s. I became press secretary for the governor of South Dakota. I had several occasions for formal attire but South Dakota winters require a coat and it was difficult then to find a coat befitting of formalwear.
On a visit home, I was talking about my dilemma and Mom said, “Well, let’s fix that.” So she told me to follow her to the basement where along one wall stood a very long chest freezer (I swear, I don’t know how they ever got it down there in the first place and it had been there as long as I could remember). She turned the key (the key always stayed right there in the keyhole), opened the expansive lid and we looked down into an almost empty freezer. But there in the bottom, wrapped tenderly in proper packaging, was Mom’s mink stole. It was her version of cold storage.
She pulled it out and we carried it upstairs where she unwrapped it and gently unfolded it and draped it over my shoulders. “There,” she pronounced. “That ought to be perfect for you. You can have it. It will feel good to know you’re wearing it.”
Mom’s initials, “MML” with the embroidery below. All of this was saved by the furrier who restyled the stole into a vest for me.
I couldn’t believe it. I truly had forgotten about the stole. I looked in the mirror and admired myself in it, even in my blue jeans. I took it off and examined the inside. It was lined and with beautiful embroidery. It bore my mother’s initials “MML” in the stitching with tiny silver seed beads highlighting them. I never asked her about those initials. Her full name was Mildred Mae Moreland before she got married. I’ve wondered if that second “M” was for her middle name or her maiden name.
The tag sewn into the inside of the neck proclaimed “Einbender’s,” a high-end store in St. Joseph, Mo., known for its excellent furs. Women would travel from around the country (and perhaps the world) to buy furs at Einbenders.
And the mink itself. Well, it was more beautiful than I remembered it to be. Such high quality and (have I worn out the word?) beautiful.
Gratefully, I carried the mink stole back to South Dakota where I wore it on several if not many occasions. I have a friend who attended many of the same soirees who had formerly agonized with me about the proper outerwear for such a night out. Now she would just scowl and say with humor, “I suppose you’re wearing that damn mink.” She knew I had something special.
Einbender’s of St. Joseph, Missouri was the original place of purchase.
I never worried in South Dakota in those days about anyone trying to deliberately destroy my fur. As much as one might disapprove (and there weren’t many), there was more a live and let live attitude that pervaded the West; well, that would be live and let live except for animals used for food and vanity. Still, when we visited a rather large church in a rich suburb of Minneapolis in the ’80s, there were plenty of full-length mink coats in attendance that had been apparently delivered by the Mercedes-Benz and BMWs in the parking lot.
After my years in the governor’s office ended I had little to no use for the mink. At one point I had it appraised thinking I should just sell it, but the price for mink stoles which were no longer in fashion and for mink which is not used as much as it used to be had dropped unbelievably. One furrier suggested that I make teddy bears out of it to give to my non-existent grandchildren.
Blackglama. “World’s finest natural dark ranch mink.” Great Lakes Mink Association.
So the mink just hung in the closet. A few winters it spent in a furrier’s cold storage. It spent a few years in our own freezer. I finally hung it in the coldest, driest part of our basement with the dehumidifier running.
I felt it was such a waste. Those mink had, after all, given up their lives about 60 years before. Surely they deserved better.
So last spring I took it to a furrier who claimed to be an expert in restyling. I thought, perhaps, a vest. And what do you know but the furrier was a client of someone in Canada who has a patent on a kind of mink yarn. Oh, I cringed at the thought. They would take the pelts from the stole and strip them in a way to create the yarn. The furrier showed me an example and I wanted to cry, but he assured me, “Yours will look so nice because yours is such a high quality mink.”
With great trepidation, I turned the beautiful mink stole over to him.
Ironically, several weeks ago as Terry and I were pulling into our rural subdivision, there was an animal standing on hind legs by the side of the road. “What is that?” he asked. “I think it’s a mink,” I said wondering what kind of omen it held for me and my mother’s mink stole.
The vest that came from the beautiful mink. Not the same at all, but I’ll wear it and it will remind me of Mom.
Yesterday I returned to pick up the finished product. I was prepared to cry. And when it was uncovered, I did cry but out of delight, not sadness. No, it doesn’t look anything like that mink stole that I loved so much. But it is a beautiful mink vest. The furrier was able to salvage all of the embroidery, my mother’s initials, and the tag proclaiming “Blackglama” and sew it all either onto the back side or the inside of the two pockets.
I’m going to wear it. I’ll wear it for nights out with my sweetie and I’ll wear it with my blue jeans during the day – just as I wore it the very first time I tried it on. I’m going to wear it a lot. Vests are in style these days even though stoles are not. Mink is not in style in this neck of the woods. I’ll have to come to terms with that.
I don’t like the idea of materialism. And I’ve thought that this is a display of that. I suppose there is some truth to that thought. But to me, it’s a memory of my mother – on days when I thought she was beautiful and smiling and laughing and happy. The best memory.
Mom had a mink. I have a mink too.
“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” – Proverbs 31:30
“So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them. . . .” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.” – Genesis 1:21-23
“Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” – Exodus 20:12
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