Carew Robe
A century-old christening robe has enfolded infants of several generations beginning with Baby Sylvia Carew Halifax 1893. Since then some 30 babies have been thus attired, rep-resenting hopes of eight or so related families. Venues have been in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, British Columbia, the Old Country and aboard ship. That splendid occasion was for Mathew Lionel Dawe 1995 on board HMCS Vancouver, frigate based near Vic-toria. Baptismal water was held in the inverted ship’s bell normally sounding half hours and hours of a watch. Mathew’s dad Larry is a retired commander, granddad Dan a retired rear admiral [d. 6 Jan. 1999]. “Mathew looked like a German butcher in drag, according to some: I thought he looked darling”, wrote my oldest sister Margot, doting grandmother.
“The robe is made of white muslin with a front panel of broderie anglais frills. Short puffed sleeves can fit infants up to six months,” reported Margot. It is typical of elaborate infant garments of an earlier period – a gift from Great Aunt Belle, Grandma (O’Neill) Carew’s younger sister? Anyway it was pressed into service for Aunt Sylvia’s baptism and kept aside for that purpose. “As I washed the robe this time, the fabric is weakening. It’s the laundering that threatens it. So, I wonder if we dare risk more sturdy babies wriggling within it. This will have to be the descendants’ worry,” she mused from Victoria 1996. She passed it to younger daughter Felicity with “a list of all those who wore it with their birth dates.”
Next after late Aunt Sylvia Carew to be garbed thus for the font was kid brother Frank 1895, killed in action in the Great War. Christened following Frank was our late mother Rita 1898. Cousin Lillian Adele Grace wore it 1899. [She lived with Carews, d. USA in late teens.] Basil and Stephen Carew were last of that generation got up in its frills. In our generation, all four of us [Margot, Rosemary, Isabel, Howard] had our turns in Saint John 1923-29. [Margot was caught aged three, modelling her gorgeous attic find in Rothesay, N. B.] Back in Halifax and Dartmouth, our Uncle-Basil-Carew cousins Anne and Basil, and our Uncle-Steve-Carew cousins Steve Jr., Jane and Chris were duly adorned in the ’30s and ’40s.
Then it was Margot’s oldest girl Gillian, followed by Mark, Brian and Felicity; my #2 sister Rosie’s girls Janet, Kathie and Launi 1940s to ’60s. Then on to Hanington nieces and nephews having theirs bundled up for christenings ’70s to ’90s. In 2000 Sophie Bel-ton in Vancouver, first baby of Fiona [daughter of Mark Hanington] and husband Owen, was posed in it only for a picture. A treasured but thinning robe rests, 109 years old in 2002, a garment that has travelled afar.
My wife’s mother Mary Ellen (Brownrigg) French (1897-1969) made one for our Marita, Duncan, Stephen, Christopher, Catherine, Caroline, Barnaby, Matthew and Cecily 1954-65. Ensuing generations included young Caroline’s Jessie and Carrie late ’70s, and Clara ‘98 Switzerland. Barnaby and Uta then delivered this garment to Ottawa ‘99 for John and Cecily’s Jasmine on Easter Sunday. Back to Atlanta, Georgia, for Bar-ney’s Gavin Daniel. Ottawa again for MacKenzie Touma Wallace, b. 1 Sept. 2000 to #5 son Matthew and Lily (Fayad). Mac’s sister Kayla Najla was baptized according to the rites of the Antiochan Orthodox church in Ottawa 2002; followed soon at Holy Cross church by Allegra Patricia Carew Wallace Harder who joined in hymns during Mass.
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