Indian Guides

A major house clean up/clean out has different categories of difficulty.  The hideous decades old pickles....very carefully dispose of them.  But other things take thought, moments of reflection.  Old clothes for instance.  They are part of our memories of the people who wore them, the places they wore them.......

Two views of an unusual garment, adult size.

This goes back to the 1960's.  Both my older brother and I remember being involved in a Father-Son thing called "Indian Guides".  It was run by the YMCA.  Dads and sons, later daughters were also brought in, got together in small groups and did stuff.  I have vague memories of craft projects.  There was a patina of Native American culture, talk about The Great Spirit and so forth.  I have a distinct impression that it was something our dad did to try and connect with us a bit.  I can sympathize, being a father of boys myself.  And it must have been harder with four sons, one with special needs, and a work ethic that went way beyond reasonable.  I've mentioned before that it was not until I went away to college that I found out that not everyone eats dinner at 8pm!  Heck, nowadays that's not far from bed time!  But what really was Indian Guides?

It was as I said, a group associated with the YMCA.  It was established back in 1926 by two friends, one of whom actually was Native.  It's heyday was in the 1960's, which corresponds with our involvement.  From various photos I've seen the "attire" varied.  Lots of head bands and feathers.  Some vests, and it looks like they were more common for the dads than the sons.

If you think this sounds a bit out of step with modern sensibilities, you'd be correct.  A more detailed history of the organization and the cultural appropriation aspects of it can be found HERE.

I think our involvement with Indian Guides was fairly short.  Pretty soon my brother and I were in Cub Scouts.  My dad didn't get involved in that.  My mom was a Den Mother, but oddly my brother and I were in different "Dens" and I was not in hers.

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Addendum.  More stuff moved, more things found.  A shirt and pants, clearly made on a home sewing machine, that look like Indian Guide garb.  Did my parents ever throw anything away?

Above are the shirt alone and alongside the vest.  There are no logos or stitch marks indicating that there ever were any.  Our family name is hand stitched in the collar.

There's a mystery here.  Whose outfit was this?  As you can see from the vest, my dad had a generous waistline.  The shirt is long, but probably designed to hang down almost to the knees.  But the pants, not shown here, are of a length such that I could almost wear them today!  Not of a waistline that would allow it, but still pretty generous.

I figured my brother and I were maybe 7 or 8 when we were in Guides.  Were one or both of us really that tall?  Was my mom really that bad at making clothes?