A few months back, I found out about the website My Mom, The Style Icon, and I decided to send this picture from 1948 when my mom worked as a model, long before she was my mom or anybody else's mom. Piper Weiss, the woman who runs the website, sent a note back and asked if there were any other pictures.
I sent e-mails to brother and sisters, but no one could find another fashion shoot photo of mom, though I do recall seeing some back when I was a kid. I wrote back to Ms. Weiss that the baking contest picture was what we had.
A few days later, my sister in law Janelle found several photos from back in the day, and I sent one of these to Ms. Weiss. She thought it was perfect and said she'd run with it post haste.
This is the picture that went up. Not nice proto-mom thinking about baking, but dolled up for a party mom, drinking, smoking and practicing her thousand yard stare.
In her defense, I'd like to point out it was the early 1960s, and drinking and smoking were mandatory. Watch Mad Men if you think I'm lying.
Also, we see an early example of the now popular practice of photobombing, getting in the frame of a picture meant for someone else and making a spectacle of yourself. The skilled photobomber on the left is my sister Karlacita! The less talented intruder on the right obscured by my mom's drink holding hand is the author.
