2. 1954 Wedding Dress of Mary Lee Hartzell
ID#: VC2007022
Date: 1954
Region: New York, USA
Culture: American
Materials: silk dupioni and Alençon lace
This 1954 wedding gown was worn by Mary Lee McPhillips Hartzell (Vassar class of 1953) daughter of Leontine Kennedy McPhillips (Vassar class of 1926), sister of Ellen McPhillips Baumann (Vassar class of 1963), aunt of Leontine Hartzell (Vassar class of 1979), and grandmother of Anna Kichorowsky Langdell (Vassar class of 2006).
“She was organizing a dance between Yale Law School seniors and the Vassar seniors and she was looking for women to come to the dance and she came over and she said ‘You've got to come, I don't have enough women.’ And I said ‘I hate those things, I just don't want to go.’ She said ‘Well you've got to go, you might meet the man you're going to marry . . . And there was Andy and he said "Can I buy you a drink?" And I put my drink behind my back and said "Sure." And we just clicked.” - Mary Lee McPhillips Hatzell (Vassar class of 1953)
Photograph of Mary Lee McPhillips Hartzell (Vassar class of 1953) in her wedding dress.
Courtesy of Mary Lee McPhillips Hartzell (Vassar class of 1953)