My mother has never been an unfortunate-looking person, but when she was younger, she was downright cute. In this clipping from the November 1st, 1959 Des Moines Register, you can see my mom in the lower-right-hand corner, grinning away between her ringlets. Although you cannot see it, the dress she is wearing is one that my parents eventually had my sister model when she was a similar age and got photographs of it, hanging them up together on the wall — mother and daughter in a spitting-image contest.
I think the other participants are equally as interesting. I’m unsure as to what is on the kid’s head in the upper left corner photograph, but I’m pretty sure that my offspring will never be seen in a bonnet with Peter Cottentail’s hind end sitting on top. The upper right-hand picture is also very curious. Nowadays it doesn’t seem out of place, but remember, this is 1959, well before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so I’m sure the placement of a black baby in a predominantly white newspaper was something of an anomaly (perhaps not, but this is my perception).
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