Like many women, long-time Marshalltownian Jane Lynch Bauer held onto her senior portrait and the dress she wore in it — a frock of shades of peach done in taffeta with a ruffled, net skirt. But she hadn’t thought about these relics of her past in several decades until she stumbled upon them in recent months while moving to a new home.

“We were in our farmhouse for over 48 years and had a lot to clear out,” Bauer said. “Almost the very last thing in the corner of the storeroom was a metal trunk and I wondered what was in it, and there was the dress.”

The wheels began to turn in the mind of her daughter Cynthia Ragland, who thought the dress would be perfect for her daughter, Bauer’s namesake, Jane to wear.

“I really did it as a joke, but it fit perfectly,” Jane Ragland said. “Mom tried to keep her plan undercover, but when we asked for the dress (grandma) knew something was up.”

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO - Jane Ragland wears her grandmother’s dress for her own senior pictures. She is class of 2019.

Over the summer, Ragland wore the dress for her senior photo shoot, done by Hoffman Photography. She posed at various locales in downtown Marshalltown and in the 13th Street District. A local ballerina, she accessorized the dress with a long strand of pearls and her pointe shoes.

Other than a small tear in one of the seams, the dress is in pristine condition and was not altered in any way for the younger Jane to wear.

The frock was purchased in the French Room of Younkers, once located in downtown Des Moines.

“I really came from a family of shoppers — my mother and grandmother — so a trip to Des Moines was always so exciting,” Bauer said. “On that type of occasion even my dad would come along and give his opinion when we bought a formal dress.”

The gown was made by Will Steinman, a dress company known for its prom, wedding and debutante formal attire — in its prime from the 1920s through the 1960s.

“When I wore it, that was the era of lots of petticoats and hoop skirts, and the shoes were always dyed to match,” Bauer said.

She first wore the dress to the 1957 Snowball Christmas dance held for high school juniors and seniors.

“Then when I graduated in 1958, it was used for my senior picture,” she said.

Local photographer Pat Apgar did Bauer’s portrait, and as a teen she had spent time working at the Apgar Studio. The photo, shot in black and white, was then hand-colorized.

“They didn’t do a lot of that work (at the studio) — it was expensive — and then my parents had another one done of my sister,” Bauer said. “For years, those hung in the living room of our family home. It was so embarrassing,” Bauer said with a laugh.

She noted how the dress looks different in person from how it does in her senior portrait, as the artist took some creative license with the coloring.

“I remember the dress the way it is in real life, and not the portrait. I think the artist looked at my hair and thought it should be more of a match,” she said.

Ragland will graduate from both Marshalltown High School and Marshalltown Community College in 2019.

The dress will be kept in anticipation of its next wearer — perhaps of a future generation.