November Surratt Courier

[L Verge]

(12-02-2014 12:50 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  Thanks, all! Some of the more interesting things I found were too tangential to Nora to be included in the article. Her stepdaughter Mary Catherine Whelan, for instance, operated a corset shop with her husband, then after her marriage ended, started her own rival corset shop and went to court to try to get the postmaster to deliver mail to her that her husband was withholding (she lost, but her business thrived). After Mary Catherine's death, her Whelan's Corset business continued to operate until the 1940's or 1950's--some of our mothers or grandmothers might have shopped there.

I thought the same thing as I read about her corset shop on F Street. That was THE shopping district in D.C. up until the decline of downtown businesses after the 1969 riots. I spent many a pleasant hour strolling in and out of shops on F Street until I went away to college. Don't remember a corset shop, however, and only remember women like my mother and grandmother wearing girdles.

Just a side note since the Christmas season is upon us. I will never forgive those who contributed to the death of the wonderful, big, downtown stores like Kann's, Landsburgh's, Woodward & Lothrop, Jelleff's, Garfinkels' and others. Those stores had the most wonderful Christmas displays in their front windows and down their main aisles. And they had the magnificent Victorian architecture that you don't find in the big box stores now. Somehow Walmart just lacks charm...