Akerholm Hair

Today is my Mom’s birthday, she would have been 84.

Here she is being held by her 71 year old Grandmother, Anna Catherine Akerholm.
I have always been haunted by this photograph of the two Annes. The stark look of another era, the breeze blowing my Great Grandmother’s wispy thin white hair - “Akerholm Hair” – Mom called it with a sigh as she tried to make it curl and look fuller on our heads. But that Akerholm hair would always cut loose and refuse to be managed, much like our unbending personalities. Mom would tell us about trips as a child to Mississippi to visit her tiny peppy Grandma Annie and how they would all jump on the beds together and have pillow fights. Gramma Annie in her seventies and still spry and FUN, that’s how Mom wanted to be.
Me too.