Flashback : Dallas

Mid-day snack in Lower Greenville

by Paula Bosse

“Dads’ Day” at the Hockaday School for Girls, was a big thing. In this annual celebration, fathers (many of whom traveled from other states) would spend a few hours on the campus with their daughters, attend special programs and performances, visit classrooms, engage in friendly sporting matches against their daughters (volleyball, softball, kickball), and enjoy refreshments. In 1947, there was an al fresco Coke and hamburger lunch. But the big event was that night: a formal dinner in the Crystal Ballroom of the Baker Hotel. And, luckily for us, the Dads’ Day festivities of February 1947 were captured by Life magazine photographer Cornell Capa. A few of the photos appeared in the March 10, 1947 issue, in the story “Dad Has His Day; Texas Schoolgirls Invite Fathers to Come and Be Dates for a Day.” This Dads’ Day story even got the cover. Below are photos by Capa which weren’t used in the story.

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Dads watching one of several presentations in their honor:

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Sitting in a classroom. I don’t know who this girl is, but I love this photo of her. (If readers recognize any of the people in these photographs, please comment below.)

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Hangin’ with the girls, enjoying refreshments:

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Volleyballing with hats on (I love this photo!):

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Enjoying more refreshments (lotta Coke at Hockaday…). (Note Bosque Bonita in the background, the property’s original house, Greenville and Belmont. Read more here.)

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More refreshments on a chilly February day:

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Girls who attended Hockaday as a boarding school, in a dorm, making the paper crowns which fathers will wear at the formal dinner at the Baker Hotel:

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Below, Ann Seidenglanz (whose preparations for this big dinner were captured in the pages of Life — she even made the cover!) places a crown on her father’s head (Charles B. Seidenglanz):

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I don’t know who these people are, but I love this photo:

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Jerrie Marcus was accompanied by her father, Stanley Marcus. (Jerrie Marcus Smith died in March of this year. Please check out the book she wrote about her great aunt Carrie Marcus — A Girl Named Carrie: The Visionary Who Created Neiman Marcus and Set the Standard for Fashion.)

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Miss Ela Hockaday, founder of the legendary school and, at the time of this photo, its president emeritus.

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Sources & Notes

Photos are by Cornell Capa, taken on assignment for Life magazine — none of the photos above appeared in the published article (March 10, 1947). See the published story here; see the photos Capa shot (almost all of which were never published) here. All photos Copyright: ©Time Inc.

None of the people in the photos above are identified, other than covergirl Ann Seidenglanz. And Stanley Marcus is obviously instantly recognizable to any Dallasite. If you can identify any of the others seen above, I’d be happy to add their names to this post.

Also, check out the lengthy Dallas Morning News story which preceded this Dads’ Day event (with studio photos of several fathers and daughters), in the DMN archives: “News of Women.” DMN, Feb. 9, 1947, Section III, p. 1, 2, 13.

More about the Greenville Avenue-era Hockaday campus can be found in the Flashback Dallas post “Belmont & Greenville: From Caruth Farmland to Hub of Lower Greenville.”

And you are always welcome to follow me on Patreon, where it’s Flashback Dallas every day, for as little as $5 a month.

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Copyright © 2023 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.