La Ped and Jules, interesting. I recall my mother being furious when another doctor with the same specialty as my dad moved into town and within a few years built a house she said was “a slap in the face of the people of [our region]”. We weren’t super-wealthy (my dad hates the cold because he didn’t have enough warm clothes growing up), but we sure weren’t dressing to show any money we did have.

Wow, Jules, I'd never heard about the Latvian socialists in Canada! I'm going to read up on that.

I hear you on funerals. In my social circle, they've become rare. My family was always less formal, doing outdoor memorial services with no expectation to wear black. Basically just a family reunion, but with ashes to scatter. My DH grew up in a very homogeneous town in French Canada where everyone went to the same Catholic church, and was totally taken aback that we don't do funerals. He's not religious, but the lack of ceremony feels odd to him (and probably a little disrespectful!).

As a child, I was raised to wear nice clothes whenever we went out, and especially for church or sunday school. Mom wouldn't let me wear shorts to school when it became the norm when I was in junior high, and it was a battle to get to wear jeans (my sister got the worse battle of that, as she's ten years older and was into bucking the norms as a rebellious teen in the late 60s).

When I was 20, I was briefly engaged to a man who was a practicing Catholic and he took me to mass, and I was mildly shocked to see how many people were wearing jeans and sneakers to church. So already a different norm had shown itself to me.

To this day, I remain a person who is far more comfortable slightly overdressed than underdressed. I was mortified once years ago when my husband told me not to bring anything special for an event we attended in NYC. I wore a silk blouse and jeans with heels, and all the other women were in fancy cocktail dresses, and I kind of wanted to die.

I tend to believe that most people are doing the best they can. Some people don't care, and honestly, how someone else dresses doesn't hurt me, so why care? But I personally I prefer to dress in a way that shows respect for my surroundings, the occasion, and anyone who may be honored at such a gathering.

LaPed I think it's a pretty obscure group so let me know if you find anything! My mother wasn't taught anything about this history and didn't grow up connected to her father's family at all. She has a very rare maiden name from her Latvian-origin paternal grandfather, one which other Latvian-Canadians from more recent immigration waves have told us doesn't seem Latvian. At some point she found something in her research and it definitely fit with who my grandfather was... that's about all I know.

Jules—don’t mean to get this off topic -but much of my family is from Latvia— and left because of religious reason. Any chance you think that your family was Jewish?

kkards, I was just wondering the same thing. My paternal grandfather was from Lithuania (close neighbour to Latvia) and left in the late 1800s for religious reasons. He went to SA. Our surname had no connection to any Lithuanian name - or any other name for that matter. It was blamed on officials not being able to understand his language. There was a huge migration of Jewish people at that time due to persecution.

SA = South Africa

On the topic of religion, I think it is absolutely perfectly reasonable for a house of worship to impose its rules on someone wishing to have an event there. If you as a bride don't want to cover your arms, for example, you have a multitude of venues to choose from.

Also, back in the day we would advise people to dress for court as if they were dressing for church, and that was a pretty clear guideline that almost everybody could understand. These days, when anything goes at most churches, notsomuch!