In 1960, the handkerchief was already old.
“In 1960, my grandmother was a visiting nurse. She got very close to one of her patients,” says Heather Cunningham, 35, of East Patchogue. Her grandmother was getting married, and the patient offered her an elegant, ivory handkerchief with lace and flower appliqués on it that she had used as her own “something old” when she married in 1910.
Cunningham’s grandmother, Mary Boyd, now 87 and living in Bayside, Queens, says that began the passing down of the handkerchief as each generation of her family marries. Boyd’s daughter carried it as her “something old” when she tied the knot, and Cunningham carried it at her wedding 2017.
Mary Boyd, of Bayside, Queens, 87, with the handkerchief that brides in her family have been using at their weddings for three generations.
Credit: Tracey Elizabeth Photography
Hand-me downs get a bad rap. But when it comes to some clothing passed from generation to generation, well, the recipients couldn’t be happier. In honor of Mother’s Day, Long Islanders share their stories of women who have passed articles from mother to daughter — or in some cases, from grandmother to mother to daughter. There’s a wedding dress rescued from a basement, an outfit laced with gold, a hand-knit sweater for newborns, a recycled christening gown, and the more than 100-year-old handkerchief.
“When Heather got it, she wrapped it around the stem of her bouquet,” Boyd says. “It was sentimental to me.” The family also keeps a notebook with it to mark down who used it and the date, with the history of the handkerchief, which has been used for more than 100 years.
“I got to write my name in the book,” says Cunningham, who is the owner and founder of Brides of Long Island, a support group for soon-to-be married brides. She says she designated a person at her wedding at The Mansion at Oyster Bay whose sole job was to get the handkerchief from the bouquet and place it back in its box. “We didn’t want to lose it,” she says. Cunningham has a daughter now whom she says she hopes will also use it one day.
THE OUTFIT OF GOLD
Sonu Kaur says if you melt the outfit that’s been passed down to her, you will get 22 karat gold.
“It’s pure silk,” Kaur, 53, of Hicksville, says of the wine-colored outfit with gold woven into it. “There’s 100 percent yellow gold in there.”
Sonu Kaur, left, wears the wedding dress that was worn by her mother-in-law, Daljit Kaur, and has been passed down for more than 100 years in Hicksville, April 20.
Kaur received the gift from her mother-in-law to wear at her wedding in 1990 in India.
In my culture, when the son gets married, the mother-in-law gives the bride an outfit or jewelry.
- Sonu Kaur, who is Indian
Her mother-in-law, Daljit Kaur, who is now 90 and lives with Kaur, chose to pass her the outfit that was previously given to her by her own mother-in-law in 1948, Kaur says. Kaur wore it again for her 30th wedding anniversary in 2020.
“I’m the third generation,” says Kaur, a seamstress who owns Fashion Dreams in Syosset. “Now I’m going to give it to my daughter-in-law.” Kaur has a son who is not yet engaged. “This is the fourth generation I’m going to give it to. I will have a small function in my house, put it on myself and then give it to my daughter-in-law.”
THE WEDDING DRESS
It started out as kidding around.
Before Casey Beauman started wedding dress shopping for her December 2021 ceremony at First Baptist Church in Hicksville, she was visiting her grandmother and telling her about her plans. “I joked with her, ‘Maybe I’ll try on your wedding dress,’” says Beauman, 28, a social worker from Levittown.
When Casey Beauman got married in 2021, she wore the same dress her grandmother Mary Boyd had worn at her wedding in 1965. Credit: Lotus Wedding Photography
The dress was stored Levittown basement of Angela Spindler, 84, who had worn it in 1965. “It wasn’t preserved like the way we preserve wedding dresses today,” Beauman says. She tried it on, and it fit perfectly. “I took that as a sign that maybe I should look into wearing it,” she says.
The A-line dress with three-quarter sleeves, boat neck and embroidered flowers was old and delicate and even still had some food stains on it from the original wedding, Beauman says. The dry cleaner warned them there was a risk that the material would be damaged by the cleaning chemicals. “My grandmother was OK with me taking a chance,” Beauman says.
It worked beautifully, Bauman says.
It definitely felt special that it was her dress that she wore. I’m close with my grandma so it felt like a special way to include her in my wedding.
- Casey Beauman, Hicksville
THE HAND-KNIT SWEATER FOR BABY
Newborn Violet Perez came home from the hospital in March — wearing a white sweater coat with pearl buttons that was knitted by her great-great grandmother.
Terry Mulvaney, 65, of Mount Sinai, started the sweater chain in 1985, when she had her first of four children. Her husband’s grandmother gifted them the hand-knit item. “I knew as soon as I saw it that I was going to keep it forever,” Mulvaney says.
Mulvaney went on to have three more children; three of the four were girls and also wore it. The sweater coat will fit babies up to about 3 months old, she says. “I had a box I saved it in,” says Mulvaney, an author and parent advocate for the Curvy Girls Scoliosis Foundation. When daughter Brittney Perez announced she was expecting a girl, Mulvaney gave her the sweater.
Newborn Violet Perez, of Mount Sinai, came home from the hospital in March wearing a white sweater that her mother had once worn. Credit: Terry Mulvaney
“It was just the most surreal thing to put my baby in something my siblings and I wore,” says Perez, 33, of Mount Sinai, an actress. “It was the most touching, full-circle moment.” She says it helped her understand the magnitude of her parents’ love for her that they kept the sweater all these years.
Mulvaney expects the sweater coat will be passed to future family newborns as well. “I consider it like an heirloom,” Mulvaney says. “When I look at the sweater coat I think about the heritage and the memories I have.”
THE CHRISTENING GOWN
This wedding gown got a second life — as a christening gown for the bride’s baby girl.
“My mom and I had the best time shopping for my wedding dress,” says Jeannine Santarelli, of East Williston, who works in human resources. “We made it a really fun bonding event.”
After the wedding, Santarelli boxed up the dress and put it away.
When it was time to later shop for her daughter’s christening dress, Santarelli’s mother said, “We really should take your wedding dress and make it into a baptism dress,” Santarelli recalls.
Jeannine Santarelli, of East Williston, had her wedding gown made into a christening gown for her daughter, Olivia. Credit: Duet Wedding ; Santarelli family
Vera Santarelli, of East Norwich, 72 and a retired travel consultant, says she thought, “why not make an heirloom out of it so can be passed from generation to generation.”
They brought it to Nancy Sinoway, a tailor from Port Washington, who made sketches, took measurements of baby Olivia, then 5 months old, and created the gown with a matching headband and bib. “We chopped it up and made it into this unbelievable thing,” Sinoway says.
The Santarellis say they relived the bonding experience they’d had shopping for the original dress. “We recreated the whole experience,” Jeannine says.
They had Olivia’s name and christening date embroidered in pink thread and left space for future users to add theirs as well. Olivia is now 6. “My hope is that every kid that gets baptized — my grandchildren, my great grandchildren, my great-great grandchildren — wears it,” Jeannine says.
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
