Florence Goldschlager Cohen

A while back I posted about this photograph of my mother, a photograph I’d never seen before.  My cousin Robin had sent it to me, but neither of us knew when it was taken.  It looked like a professional photograph, and I could not figure out who took it or why my mother was sitting for a formal photograph.

I finally got around to asking my mother about the photo a few weeks ago.  At first she could not recall when it was taken.  What she remembered was that she had purchased the sweater while visiting her brother and sister-in-law in West Hartford.  My Aunt Lynn had taken her shopping, and my mother remembered what a good time they had and how much she enjoyed visiting with them for a long weekend.  She thought that perhaps the photograph was taken by my Uncle Maurice.

But I pointed out to her that it looked like a professional photograph.  I asked her when she had cut her hair short since I knew that it was long when she graduated from high school in 1948 and short by the time she married my father three years later.  She could not remember the exact year, but said that she had cut it after an interview with the Barbizon School of Modeling.  The people there had suggested that she cut her hair, and so my mother did, much to my grandmother’s dismay.  She recalled that she must have visited my aunt and uncle shortly thereafter and purchased the sweater then.  She then went back to the Barbizon School to have a professional photograph taken.  Although she never pursued a modeling career, that photograph certainly is evidence that she could have.