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fateful voyage. Being born in England in the the story of the unique and stark appearing
Edwardian era, a time when medical care was not coiffure that sat before her every day. Wouldn’t

that advanced, she lost her mother at childbirth you like to know the story? I know that I did!
and her father never remarried despite having Thus, the story unfolded with the revelation
eight children. When she was around eight or that the girl who sat there was an orphan,
nine, she sat behind a girl in school who always losing mother, father, and brother in 1912.

covered her hair. (My grandmother to her final Grandmother May lost her mother in 1910, so she
days took great pride in her hair.) This again had an understanding, empathy and sympathy
being an age when one was polite and pretended for this poor child.
to ignore the obvious or unusual about someone, Alas that wasn’t the whole story. More

dearest May finally succumbed to her curiosity unfolded in the days that followed. She was living
and asked the question, “and why do you cover with a spinster aunt, a cold, prim, and proper
your hair?” The girl, thin, tall and always woman with no time for an active eight-year old.
appeared pale in complexion, replied simply by Rather than string this out for the next two or

letting her cover reveal the secret that is hid so three months, I will synthesize it down for us all.
well. Her hair was white. Lamb’s wool white. Not Mary, for that was her name, had a loving
a blonde that was so light it appeared white, it mother and father and a little brother of about
was w-h-i-t-e, period. Now dear reader, you and 2-years old. Their father, a banker by trade, was

I are not bound by the confines of another age, asked to take-up a post in a British-owned bank
and we would be asking a thousand questions in New York City and was invited to bring the
of this odd appearance of the girl’s hair. It took family with him and live in the Americas. He
some time for my grandmother to wheedle out counted himself lucky to book passage on the

VOICES! | MARCH 2020 23