Summer Session Kansan
Page 3
Costuming, Millinery, Knitting and Rocks Are 'First Loves' of Theatre Seamstress
Rv Margaret Ogilvie
By Margaret Ogilvie
There used to be a sign on the door which read "Ye Olde Costume Shoppe," but now you know you've found the right place when a little white-haired lady wearing a white smock and a big smile greets you from behind a counter inside that door. She is Mrs. Ida Conroy, costume executrix of KU's Theater department.
Evidence of this seamstress' skill and contentment in her work is apparent in the way her hands move deftly over the cloth pieces, forming one of the costumes which she estimates require from approximately two hours to four days for completion. The vital capacity she fills consumes the weekdays all year round, yet she "doesn't mind at all" when it is necessary for her to work on Saturdays and Sundays.
During this summer season she will make 28 new ensembles. For all the rest she will draw on the brimming drawersful of costumes used in past productions, restlying them to suit different roles. Mrs. Conroy commented that there are to be 127 changes in "Bye Bye Birdie," while the cast includes only about 69 characters.
PEOPLE OFTEN request that Mrs. Conroy do costuming for them on a private basis, having taken notice of her handiwork during a production, but she finds this impossible to fit into her schedule.
"The Tempest" was produced last winter with all-new costuming. Although the costumes for "The Man of Destiny" were rented, the style of the hats provided inspiration for several Mrs. Conroy has just completed. She thinks they may "come in handy" next year, but primarily the six hours she devoted to each was "just for fun."
IT WAS FUN for the executrix because millinery is another field of sewing in which she is adept. Relating that she had often fashioned hats for herself, she mentioned that her aunt had been a dressmaker and milliner who had taught her "lots," from the age of about 3. Recalling those experiences, Mrs. Conroy mused, "I tried to embroider and do everything that little old ladies did."
"From the time I was six, I made all my dolls' clothes—patterns and all—and my own from the time I was 11," Mrs. Conroy continued. Now she sometimes uses commercial patterns when sewing for herself, but she commented that, particularly in constructing costumes, "It takes me longer to take a pattern from a package and study it to see where it goes that it does to cut the article."
THOUGH HER present occupation did grow out of early exposure to the field, Mrs. Conroy confesses now that she didn't really know exactly what she intended to do at that time. "All I wanted to know was to learn how to do all of this," she said, her voice radiating the same enthusiasm she must have felt then. And then thoughtfully she added, "... I think it's better to train for several different things"
Her first formal training in dressmaking, millinery, tailoring, drafting of dress patterns, and working with furs was during the autumn of her 17th or 18th year. It was then she was apprenticed at an establishment called "Lynn's Millinery Shop" in Atchison, Kan., where she was born.
She spent her childhood in Kansas towns, except for four years when her father owned and operated a pharmacy in Kansas City. Mo
THE FIRST costume sewing Mrs. Conroy can remember doing was when she and a girl friend dressed as Egyptians for a masked ball at the "Chin Chin Club" in Atchison. She was first employed in that capacity in 1920, when she was called upon to make Indian garb for a pantomime, "Mexico, Yesterday and Today," in Las Vegas, N.M.
Mrs. Conroy contented herself for a period after that by sewing for her five children as they were going through school. During that time she also did costuming for the YMCA Little Theatre and for the University of Wichita, when the
family was living there—which was until she moved to Lawrence.
Mrs. Conroy became affiliated with KU through one of her daughter Barbara's friends, Herbert Camburn, who was costumer at that time and who brought her into the shop. She began working with Mr. Camburn in 1958, when he had just moved operations from Fraser Hall to the present location under the Experimental Theatre and just off the Green Room in Murphy Hall.
HAVING ASSISTED Mr. Camburn until March 1959, she returned in the fall of that year to aid Caroline Kriesel, who succeeded him. Mrs. Conroy remained to begin working with Chez Haehl, who became costumer in the summer of 1963. Rounding out the staff in the shop this summer is Mary Lynn Speer, Merriam senior, a student assistant.
There will be three such assistants during the coming school year. Mrs. Conroy is planning to abandon her career with KU next February to operate a lapidary in cooperation with a son, Frank, at his family's home in Aurora, Colo.
The family's establishment, "Conroy's Capricious Capers," consists of a two-room area and a display room. In the future Mrs. Conroy plans to display her wares at rock shows and rock and mineral clubs each week. Because rock cutting, grinding, and polishing is a favorite pastime for Mrs. Conroy, she attends monthly meetings of a group of enthusiasts in Lawrence.
KNITTING, ANOTHER "first love" also fits into the prospects for busy years ahead. "I plan to do plenty when I'm cutting rocks," she predicted. It seems that she will be all set up, whichever of her children's homes she chooses to establish as her own. She has been provided with her own room in three of them, although Colorado will be her address. She reasons that "the galloping grandma," as she referred to herself, will be moving around when she "feels like roving."
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