My Mom, the Bathing Beauty

This coming Tuesday, my mother would be 98 years old. Sadly, we won’t be celebrating her birthday with her (she died nearly four years ago), but I will be thinking of her. And I’m writing about her now and about a big surprise she left behind.

My parents were not big on photo albums. Sure, there were a few pictures taken of my brother and me at birthday parties, high school graduations, and family gatherings. There is an adorable shot of my brother and me sitting uncomfortably atop a horse when I was about four and he was about nine, and even an embarrassing shot of me being sworn in as captain of the school safety patrol in sixth grade. But those pictures were mostly isolated shots, pinned onto bulletin boards around our house or set into inexpensive frames and hung onto walls.

So it was a big shock when my sister-in-law Sandy found a small, aging photo album tucked into a storage chest in the attic in my mother’s house, which she was clearing out after my mother moved from the house into an assisted-living facility late in her life.

And what an album it is! The album is labeled "Miami Beach, Florida, August 1939" and features a very happy gathering of young people enjoying the sun, beach, and each other’s company. Young women AND men, and one of them is my 19-year-old mom! She’s hugging young men I don’t know (and never met) and wearing some skimpy summer outfits. And she is smiling big time!



My Mom is at the top right surrounded by young men.



Hugging and smiling big time!

I’m not sure how most people would respond to finding a “bathing beauty” photo album of their mother as a teenager. On a scale from shocked to surprised, I’d like to think that I was closer to surprised. But my surprise quickly morphed into smiles as I looked through the album. There is a freedom and joy that I don’t think I saw often in my mother. After all, I first met her long after she was married and already the mother of a five-year-old. And I doubled her family responsibilities. Once I arrived, she had three lives to run besides her own—and that was just in our immediate family.



The Miami photos also surprise me because the mother I knew almost never went to the beach even though Tybee was just 18 miles from our Savannah home. She said she hated the beach “because it was dirty.” I’m sure she was joking when she said that, but only partially. She really didn’t like mess. Luckily, she still put up with me and my messy ways for the 18 years I lived full-time in the Savannah house that was her home for nearly 60 years.  



My Mom on a sandy beach-- now, that's a surprise!

I have lots of memories of my mom, but none of her as a bathing beauty until this album emerged from its hiding place. It’s nice that your mom can still surprise you and make you smile after all these years.