I was missing those illustrated elevator rides. I was regretting that we wouldn’t be able to go to lunch together after the appointment in the third-floor cafeteria, with its salad bar, its fish baked on the premises, its hardy soups, its many dessert choices. 
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Little Rock, Arkansas is the home of Central High, the Clinton Library—and the only dedicated purse museum in the United States. Although not a traditional art museum, I think the ESSE Purse Museum exhibits a different kind of art: symbols of the lives of women in a one-of-a-kind collection of clutches, crossovers, and cavernous carryalls.

The ESSE Purse Museum provides a unique perspective on 20^th century American women, illustrated through a display of the purses they carried. The museum’s exhibits also trace the history of fashion in the last century, of women’s evolving sense of self, of accessories as art.

(I visited the museum several years ago on a side trip to Northwest Arkansas after visiting the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the October craft fairs in War Eagle.)

Arranged within the museum’s glass display cases is a collection of purses from 1900 through the 1990s, divided by decade. Owner and curator Anita Davis has assembled a dazzling array of purses demonstrating the changes in what women carried—over their shoulders or tucked by their sides—as their needs and habits changed over time. The ten main displays and their witty interpretations, written by Laura Cartwright Hardy, make it clear that the purses—and their contents—tell a larger story, each purse representing the woman who clutched it in her gloved hand at a USO dance or slung it over her shoulder on the way to work. Rather than try to summarize Hardy’s work, here are a few excerpts:

“What is the essence of womanhood? Despite her inner core that makes her unique, every woman is also an ‘everywoman’ tapped into the collective consciousness that preceded her and will exist long after she is but a remembered whiff of cologne, a hint of spearmint in an old handbag, a rosewater-scented handkerchief long-buried in a drawer.”

“Just as the essence of a woman is not her appearance, size, shape or hair color, the essence of a woman’s handbag is not its style, price, designer logo or color. The essence of both are the things they carry, literal and ethereal–the makeup and the memories, the driver’s license and the driving desires, the hairbrush and the hope, the wallet and the wishes, the lotion and the love.”

“Not an accessory, but an extension of her ‘self,’ a woman’s purse  is….the sacred, private place that holds her identity, her valuables, her memories, her dreams, her mystery. Always within reach, her purse is personal space, not a possession but a hallowed repository of the things that make her ‘her.'”

Who she was, how she moved about in her world—whether she belonged to the flapper era, the turbulent ’60s, or the have-it-all ’80s—her story is told in purses made of leather, plastic, needlepoint, metal, snakeskin or straw, glittery and gilded, sequined or beaded. Each purse carries with it traces of the woman who packed the comb, compact, and mad money— or the brick-size phone, a pair of running shoes and a granola bar. You can almost catch the scent of Shalimar or Chanel N°5 on the edge of a handkerchief tucked inside one of the satin evening bags.

Again, Ms. Hardy:

“Sensual or sturdy, purses offer so much to ponder: the aroma of childhood, remembrances of home, people past and times gone by–and the smell of the new: leather, straw, hopes, ambitions. A hint of a scent–was my mother just here?”

A switch clicked in my brain. I have no idea why. I looked at Gina and said “I need to do that.”
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I am an inveterate romantic. Dan teases that I weep at Hallmark commercials. He’s not wrong. I am sentimental. I save everything. I have a dried sprig of flowers from my wedding bouquet, pressed into my Bride’s Book.

I have a long memory, for good and bad. Dan can make grand gestures when he chooses to, but isn’t sentimental at all. That sets me up for disappointment.

Dan and I began dating in December, 1972. I was still with Bob, but he would graduate at the end of the month and we were both ready to move on. He got me nothing for my birthday on the 10th of the month, but Dan walked into my suite with a lovely bottle of Madame Rochais perfume. I was overwhelmed. We were soon a steady couple. He graduated in May, 1973, but lived locally.

I went home that summer, worked at an overnight camp in Michigan and we wrote and talked to each other regularly. I needed a car, as I would student teach in the fall, so Dan came to my Huntington Woods home and helped me drive my mother’s car back to school (I bought the seven-year-old Valiant for a dollar).

He worked full-time at a software company in Waltham, officially lived with his parents in near-by Newton (we went there every Sunday night for family dinner) but he came to my dorm room later in the evening and slept over.

One evening in late October, he yammered on and on about “when we are married, we’ll do this. When we are married, we’ll do that”. Finally I queried, “Do you really think we’ll get married?”

That seemed to startle him. Yes, he certainly thought we would wed. “Then why don’t you ask me?!” (He was using the “assumed close”, a term I later learned in my sales career.)

He asked, I said yes; he continued with his plans and dreams.

We became engaged. I got my ring for my 21st birthday on December 10. That is when we told his parents. My parents already knew, since my mother had always told me that if I wanted a June wedding in our temple, I needed to book it a year in advance and it was now only eight months away. My father was an officer of our temple, so I’d called him in October to check out dates. I got an excited letter back addressed to “my darling children”.

“I guess we’re engaged, Dan.” We reserved both Saturday night, June 15 and Sunday afternoon, June 16 (my parents’ anniversary) depending on the type, size and cost of wedding we would decide upon.

I went home for winter break and began planning in earnest. We chose the Sunday date at 1pm; a relatively small event with no sit-down dinner. It is what my father could afford. When I returned for my final semester, I found that many of my friends had also become engaged; we all were so happy for one another.

Valentine’s Day was a weekday that year. I ate in the cafeteria with several girlfriends whose boyfriends or fiancés were older, like Dan, and not on campus. Covert plans had been made by several, in league with some of the other women, to sneak cards under the trays to surprise their girlfriends. Flowers showed up in the dorms. There was lots of happiness and celebrating. I waited for Dan to show up. We were newly engaged and I expected something thoughtful and romantic.

I was disappointed. Nothing came, not even a card. And we were supposed to be young and in love. At the peak of wedding planning and romantic excitement. He just blew past it.

For a guy who had made such an impression 14 months earlier with a birthday present for someone who wasn’t even his girlfriend, this left a bitter taste. He still usually doesn’t make a big deal of Valentine’s Day. I am resigned to it now. It’s just who he is.

But last year, he got me an absolutely gorgeous floral arrangement, as you can see in the Featured photo (with the empty perfume bottle, his first gift, in front of the flowers – I told you, I save EVERYTHING). When he wants to, he knows how to make the grand, romantic gesture. And I truly appreciate it.