Inspirational wedding dress on display at vintage style show

VINTAGE WEDDING DRESSES WILL BE MODELED or displayed at the P.E.O. Chapter DK’s auction and social Saturday. Audrey Carey, center, gives a couple of the gowns modeled by Tia Murrill, left, and Chelsey Phelps, along with Gracie Howell, a good once-over in preparation for the show. CHRIS BAXTER / The Observer

The dress is timeless, and so is the story of the woman who sewed it — a story that continues to inspire decades after her death.

The dress was made in 1903 by Sarah Latham Bates of Prairie City. Bates sewed the gown for her daughter, Edna. Bates had limited tools. Things like cordless electric cutters were many decades away.

Bates lost her left arm at the age of 6 in a firearm accident while coming to the West with her family on the Oregon Trail in 1860. The mishap occurred when a loaded gun fell off a wagon and discharged

Loss of the arm did not prevent her from raising seven children, becoming skilled at everything from milking cows to cooking, making ice cream and becoming a skilled seamstress.

Wait, there’s more.

“She was the first school teacher in Grant County,’’ said Gerda Brownton of La Grande, owner of the dress and a relative of Sarah Bates by way of her marriage to the late Wes Brownton.

Bates was Wes Brownton’s grandmother. The wedding dress that will be displayed Saturday at a vintage style show and auction, was made by Bates for her daughter Edna, Wes’s mother.

Amazingly, the dress had just an 18-inch waist.

“She may have worn a corset,’’ Gerda Brownton said.

Today corsets are as rare as early morning weddings, or a ceremony like that of Edna Bates and Herbert Brownton. The two were married in Prairie City at 8 a.m. June 24, 1903. The ceremony was early because the couple did not want to delay their trip to Portland for their honeymoon.

The two moved to La Grande in 1912 where Herbert Brownton worked as a dentist for 60 years. Sarah and Herbert were involved in numerous community activities and played an instrumental role in getting the Methodist Church built.

“They were pillars of La Grande,’’ Gerda Brownton said.

Edna took good care of her 1903 wedding dress, one of many to be displayed Saturday at the annual P.E.O. (Philanthropic Educational Organization ) Chapter DK auction and social from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Presbyterian Friendship Center.

Wedding dresses of members of Chapter DK will not only be on display but also modeled. A wedding cake will be offered among other deserts and refreshments. Proceeds from the event will go to scholarships for women.

Admission to the vintage wedding dress style show is $2.

P.E.O. Chapter DK is one of three P.E.O. chapters in La Grande. The La Grande P.E.O. chapters together provide a major tuition scholarship for a young woman attending EOU each year. The chapters also provide scholarships annually to women from La Grande attending college outside the area.