The Hundred Dresses

It’s hard not to enjoy yourself at a meeting when you’re surrounded with like-minded people who are supportive, encouraging, and caring. When the meeting itself is focused on individual growth and service to others, the enjoyment factor is moved up a notch.


Here’s what happened at Relief Society the other night. Three women took turns reading from a children’s book entitled The Hundred Dresses, a book about a little girl named Wanda who claimed to have one hundred dresses hanging in her closet. As far as the other girls could see, however, she only had one faded blue one that she wore day after day after day. They began to tease her about it, and then one day her father wrote a letter to the school announcing that he was moving his little family away from a place where his children were made fun of. To make a long story short, the other girls felt remorse at their behavior, but it was too late to make amends. One of them, Maddie, felt especially ashamed because although she had been feeling uneasy about the taunting, she had remained quiet.

You can guess the underlying themes in this book, and our leaders took the opportunity to remind us to show kindness to everyone regardless of social class, accent, race, appearance, or occupation. Everyone had been asked to bring a dress to donate to Sister Care, an organization for abused and battered women and their children. It was awesome to look around the room and look at the lovely dresses that had been donated.

After listening to the book and discussing its several themes, then several women shared stories about their favorite dresses. Some of them brought pictures of themselves wearing the dresses, and a couple actually wore them that night. Kitty wore an outfit that had cost a pretty penny a couple of decades ago, and the story about its purchase entertained us big time. I loved all the stories, but I think my favorite was Vickie’s because she brought pictures of her wedding that took place in June, 1971. Not only did she tell the interesting tale about how she found just the perfect dress for the right price, but she also told of how many things she and Joe had experienced in the nearly four decades since that June afternoon.

Since Thursday, I’ve been thinking of my favorite dresses. There are too many to write about! One I’m thinking of tonight, however, is an Easter dress that my mother made for me when I was a junior in college. It was made of some pink floral material with a little slinkiness about it. My sister had one too; hers was green. I’m not sure why this particular dress was so special unless it’s because we corresponded back and forth about it, and my sister and I knew how hard our mother was working on the dresses.

Dresses can make you feel beautiful…or kind of dowdy. I try to stay away from the latter. I thinking right now of some special little girls who LOVE to dress up in princess dresses. In fact, Brooke and Emma wore their pink princess dresses to see Toy Story last night. Lauren says that as soon as Sallie gets home every day, she changes into her Tinker Bell dress. Can you blame them for wanting to look like the princesses they are?

I probably should end this post with a serious note that reminds us to give to those less fortunate, to take up for those who are teased or mistreated, and to give to those less fortunate. But I’m not. You already know that, right? I’m going to end by asking about your favorite dress. Do you have a favorite one? What’s the story that goes with it?