model behavior

As I prepare for each journey into the unknown, I can’t stop thinking of the model behavior that has guided my entire life. Across the span of more than a century, my mother Anna Katherine became known for her cheerful outlook, sense of style, devotion to family and friends, and love for travel. Anna regarded the world with a smiling blue-eyed gaze that left an impression on everyone she met. Today, I share one vignette from her storied life.

During World War II, like many American women whose men had been sent overseas, Anna reserved a portrait session with a professional photographer. This photo from 1943 (10 years before my birth) is one of two studio photos she posed for that day. Imagining my father, her new husband Charles, in the room, 21-year-old Anna awed the camera—first, in an elegant evening dress, and then, in a silk morning gown. In the photographs, she is pictured standing serenely before a classic columned backdrop.

While Charles was away, Anna created other keepsakes for him, too, recording her voice on a recordio* disc and piecing together the handmade "Remember" book she filled with collaged cutouts from magazines and newspapers to tell their love story. These gifts made their way through Victory Mail** to Ipswich, England, where my father was stationed. The couple exchanged photographs, letters, and telegrams as often as they could for the 18 months that he was abroad.

In 2011, when I acquired sound recording gear for my art podcast, I began capturing my mother’s voice. Over the next 12 years, I captured her oral history. 

In 2023, the last story she shared with me sparked the six-week pilgrimage I embarked on only days after her death. Remember Anna is an evolving narrative that begins by retracing her footsteps, quite literally, to remember the life-changing journey she took in 1942, at the age of 19. Her cross-country train trip from Pittsfield, Maine, to Casper, Wyoming, led to the dance floor of the Army Air Force Officers Club where she met my father.

Finding that historic space, with wood floor still gleaming, marked the end of my summer’s quest. Quite naturally, I took a smiling spin around the room with my cousin Philip—head and heart filled with memories I’ll always hold dear.

*Recordios were voice recordings on vinyl sent to loved ones during World War II.

**Victory mail, or V-mail, was a postal system put into place during the Second World War.