This old photograph was taken in a local park that resides below the church that my wife and I got married in. On the back of the photograph is a rather sad inscription:
‘Dorothy in coloured dress because she was not allowed a white dress as her mother not married’
The sense of sadness deepens when you study the expression on the poor girl’s face, made to feel separate from the other children present.
Made an example of through no fault of her own.
They are all grouped together for a staged photograph, but she is distinct from the others.
Would I have noticed this without the written inscription? Probably not. But now-she is the focus of everything.
I wonder if her mother was present, and how she felt seeing her daughter treated so, no doubt ostracised herself?
If that photograph was taken today, the girl would have fit right in with everybody else.
Whoever Dorothy was, I hope she went on to have a happy and fulfilled life, this day becoming long forgotten.
City Jackdaw 
How horrific. Yet, if I am frankly honest with myself, can I claim to be entirely innocent of ostracizing, judging, and shaming others? Of course not. As much as I may mature and grow, I know that when I feel vulnerable, I have the tendency to make scapegoats of others. From my places of insecurity come the tendencies to separate myself from other people in a way that puts them down and elevates myself. Maybe we don’t do things such as force children of unwed mothers to wear different colored dresses, or force individuals to wear scarlet A’s, but I have a suspicion that as a society, not all that much has changed.
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These days the judging is not in such an overt, obvious way. I think we should all be governors of our own consciences, as much is done in secret.
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First Communion Day?
Never heard of this for a kiddo…geesh.
Maybe May Day/May Pole fun for the local orphans?
Whaaaat?
Dorothy probably did not have as much fun/or receive the sacrament as happily as the others (I really don’t think it’s a first communion, but the dresses look a bit like what would be worn)
You really know how to pick ’em, Andy.
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It was May Day-so May Pole dancing, etc.
I know! Photo was of local interest ( I often walk through that park to the town library) and I’m a sucker for a sad story.
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This post stayed with me, thus I keep returning to it. Something resonate and heartbreaking here.
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Yes-the judgement of the day made all the worse because it is delivered on a child.
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Oh how awful that a child was singled out like that! What was the point of shaming her in such a horrible way??? I hope that didn’t ruin her life.
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We will never know, but we can hope.
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Such a powerful image. Sad but powerful.
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Yes, it’s the kind of thing you come across in hard to read stories.
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The girl I first thought to be Dorothy has behind her another girl also not in a white dress. Now of course it doesn’t matter which is Dorothy the tale and injustice remains. However I am glad that Dorothy was not alone and hope they had each other for support, for I am sure this is but one example of how they were marked apart from their peers.
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I’m sure you are right. There would have been many examples away from the camera, unrecorded. Judgements would not be just insinuated back then, more so than today.
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What if someone could have told her that in the future people will notice only you on the photo and give you support in their minds. The rest is just white dressed ordinary kids, you are the one they will remember and hopefully learn something from.
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That would have been great. I hope she experienced some of that in old age.
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Me too!
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Thank you for sharing that photo. Saddens me for the child……I can empathize….we all can. In some way we’ve all been on the outside, separated, excluded….purposefully or not.
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Sometimes the sense of being ostracised is quite overt and blatant, at other times it is more subtle and insinuated. Thank you for reading 🙂
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