vintage photos Archives

This past weekend I had a fun vintage weekend so thought I would share it with you. First up on Saturday I was part of an event in Toronto called “Rosie O-Rama in conjunction with 2 events. V-J day (Japanese surrender that marked the end of World War II) and the Guinness Book of World Records “Most Rosie the Riveters in one spot” that was happening in California that day.

Rosie the Riveter Guinness World Record — Some of the original “Rosie the Riveter” women sitting in the first row, who worked in the Richmond shipyards during WWII (Anda Chu/The Contra Costa Times via AP)

Since I don’t live in California a few of us got together (including fellow blogger Irene from Petite Plus Meow) and dressed up as Rosie (or for us Canadians ‘Ronnie the Bren Gun Girl‘) and met at City Hall in Toronto by the fancy new 3D sign for photos.

Rosie the Riveter Toronto — Toronto’s ‘Rosies”

We then got out of the hot hot sun and zipped over via public transit to our fav “Rosie the Rebel” reproduction clothing store for some shopping and then ended our adventures at the super cool vintage Malt Shop- ‘Bean and Baker‘ for yummy goodies.

TTC Subway Rosie the Riveter 1940s — Riding the subway to work 🙂

Ice cream time at Bean and Baker!

Bean and Baker Malt Shop Toronto — At Bean and Baker Malt Shop

mmmm handcrafted cherry coke and an Astro Pop!

It was a great day with these 4 ladies of the Toronto Vintage Society.

SUNDAY

On Sunday my hubby was working so I decided that I was going to jump on the streetcar and head to one of my fav vintage stores in Toronto-Gadabout on Queen St. East.

Gadabout is one of these stores where you need to clear your calendar and even go alone so that you can spend hours filtering thru all the wonderful goodies they have. The owner Victoria is so nice and so is all her hardworking staff. I feel so welcomed every time I go.

For today’s trip I was on the hunt for vintage photos (I love my vintage photos) AND possibly a new Tiki dress for the TVS Tiki Party August 29th. I spent a couple of hours and brought home the following:

Find #1: This great souvenir photo taken at the Historic King Edward Hotel in Toronto in the 1940s.

It looks like these lovely young people are on a double date at one of the fanciest hotels in town. I wonder if they went dancing after in one of the gorgeous ballrooms at the hotel? Don’t they look like they are having so much fun? The gentlemen on the left is in mid laugh 🙂

Find # 2: Beautiful photo from the 1930s of a very well dressed mother and her adorable son.

Style alert! The mothers dress is simply beautiful and her shoes…wow!!! I love the hat as well. Very very nice.

Find # 3: This image instantly caught my eye when I saw the wonderful head scarfs and the cool Hawaiian shirt the man on the right is wearing. Then I started to look at it more and realized that I believe these lovely people are at a seaside resort somewhere. Wonderful!

Find # 4: I love her dress, that is why I took this image home with me.And I giggle when I see that someone’s finger got in the photo 🙂

Find # 5: I believe this picture is of a mother with her very handsome son and gorgeous well dressed daughter (isn’t her dress just divine and her hair is perfect). I’m enjoying that the mother does not seem happy to be taking the photo but the kids have nice smiles on their faces and don’t seem to mind at all.

Find # 6: I remember when I went to summer camp and at the end of the week we would get a photo of the whole camp and then we would spend the day running around getting everyone to sign the back of it. When I found this image of a group of young ladies in the 1940s, possibly at summer camp and the back was signed I just knew this was a keeper.

The back has cute “nicknames” that the girls had given each other. Like “Tiny” Jones and “Cookie”.

Find # 7: Here comes the bride all dressed in..not white but who cares! She looks wonderful (want her dress!) and her husband..so handsome. He reminds me a bit of Don Draper of Mad Men fame.

Image # 8: Here is another happy couple from the 1930s. Her husband/boyfriend/”friend” looks so in love with her, I just adore how he is looking at her in this picture. And once again, the lovely lady wins in the style department. Look how dainty her gloves are? Swoon…

Find # 9: FLAMINGOS!! I love flamingos and when I saw this wonderful menu from a still in business restaurant in Toronto, I just had to have it. I belive it’s from around the 1950s from the prices you see in the next image.

Inside of the menu. I love the section on “Milk drinks”. Milk Shakes, Malted Milk, Egg Nogg, Egg Malted. That’s a lot of Milk 🙂 And don’t forget the “Hot Ovaltine”.

Last but not least I also bought myself a vintage dress for the Tiki party I mentioned above. Here is the fabric but you won’t see the dress until Tiki party time (it’s a surprise).

Did you have a good weekend? Find any vintage goodies yourself?

Liz 🙂

Who was the Bren Gun Girl?

The Bren Gun Girl according to Wikipedia was a young woman named “Veronica Foster” who became a Canadian icon representing nearly one million Canadian women who worked in the manufacturing plants that produced munitions and material during World War II. She was popularly known as “Ronnie, the Bren Gun Girl” and worked for the company John Inglis Co.Ltd producing Bren light machine guns on a production line on Strachan Avenue in Toronto, Ontario (Where I live! And now called “Liberty Village”). She became popular after a series of propaganda posters were produced; most images featured her working for the war effort, but others depicted more casual settings like Foster dancing the jitterbug (just like the image we found in my book) or attending a dinner party.

She can be seen as the Canadian precursor to the American fictional propaganda tool Rosie the Riveter (Source-Wikipedia).

Veronica Foster-The Canadian Rosie the Riveter aka "The Bren Gun Girl". Posing for a photo with a bren gun while smoking. — Source: Wikipedia

Image comment: I find it interesting that she is smoking in this picture. I know in the TV Show Bomb Girls that would not be allowed but maybe it is because she is posing with a gun and not a bomb 🙂

Note from Laura-Veronica’s Daughter:

Just to clarify a small fact… my mother never smoked. The photographer wanted her to smoke because I guess it was considered sexy in those days and smoking was supposed to be the socially acceptable cool in those days. Up until a few years ago you could smoke anywhere you wanted at any time. But… my mother never smoked… just for the “Ronnie” photos.