20th Century hair

February 5, 2020
by Angela

February 5 is my mother Sylvia’s birthday. Usually, I keep these very personal anniversaries to myself, but the other day, as I was going through some old photos, I realized that they reflected virtually every significant hair style from the first half of the 20th Century. Fittingly, Mommy worked her way through beauty school and “did hair” until she was in her early 70s.

That’s Sylvia at 16 in the featured photo. Note that she grayed very early. I once asked her why she never colored her hair. “Because all the women told me I should and all the men told me I shouldn’t,” she quipped. During the war years, before she met Daddy, she had a beau who called her “Silvery.” Need I say more? She was a smart cookie.

Enjoy these photos from the first half of her life. After all, it’s winter and we’re all tired of gloom and flu.

At 18.
I believe she was 21 in this lovely shot.
Beauty school graduation photo (sorry for the reflection).
Wedding day, 1946.
And the three of us, circa 1950.

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