My Mother’s Face

A little indulgence here — as I go through the family photos (there are a lot of them, expect to see them over the coming months — this is a novel slowly unfolding). I was struck how much alike were these two "glamour" head shots — the first of my mother at about 20 (maybe even a wee bit younger judging by her hair style). She had left the farm at North Dakota to go to school at Berkeley (at 16 years old) and then a year later at UCLA. Her mother, Jeanette Westergaard was working as a script writer in Hollywood (under the name of Mahoney…another long story) and thought her daughter needed up-grading. Hair, make-up and glamour shots, washing out the farm girl face. My photo — taken twenty years later was a promotional photo for the theatre. I was, at 16 playing the role of "Sandy" in Muriel Spark's "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie." Hence the photo for the playbook.

This second pairing is funny — the same photo of me (different version) but my mother at forty — and I realized with some humor that we are both wearing the same sweater. I can't remember now who owned it first. We lived together more like roommates rather than mother and daughter so it's possible that we would have shared this rather nice sweater. I think we both liked the slight ruffle at the neck. I have no idea who took this photo of her, but I love it. She was strangely ageless, and here, without make up and with those 70's bangs, she looks more like the North Dakota farm girl again.