The Hair Wreath: Part One

Before I started school and I was well over six at the time, there being no public school kindergarten and we being too short of cash to send me to Mrs. Rose's private sessions, I spent my days watching and listening with the women—Grandmother, Mother, and Aunt Ina. Talking, sewing, and combing of hair was what they did. I claimed my place underneath the upright piano.

Aunt Ina laughed at me. "Little Annabelle, dusting under the piano again."

Sometimes Aunt Ina's golden retriever "Doll Baby" shared the space with me. It was Aunt Ina's piano, bought for her by Grandfather from a salesman who said that it was a "Baldwin" and only had the name "Valley Gem" on it because the manufacturer thought that "Valley Gem" would appeal more to folks who lived in the country.

Actually we lived at the top of a hill on the edge of town, but it probably looked like country to him or did he mean to say that we were not the sort who needed to be taken in by subterfuge. Perhaps he was reaching to compliment Aunt Ina, who was very pretty always (although I wasn't born when the piano was bought for her). At any rate, she already had eyes for another, her sweetheart for whom she practiced happily all the songs they had danced to before he went overseas. The music was hidden in the seat now, and no one could bear to ask her to play.

Aunt Ina had a special stiff-bristled brush for grooming "Doll Baby" which mostly she did on the back porch.

"It soothes her," Grandmother said to Mother. "She needs to do it."

Sometimes we had to wait supper while Aunt Ina finished. "I lost track of time," she would say. "I'm sorry."

"I wish you had more appetite," Mother would say; and Aunt Ina would be sure then to praise the biscuits or comment on how well the string beans were cooked. Since we hadn't any men in the house, the women had to praise each other's cooking. There were "the boys" of course, my brothers, but they would eat anything and liked nothing so much as stirring everything they were served around and around until it was what they called "goulosh."

Each of the women had a silver-backed comb and brush set, hand-painted and kept handy for the long strands that pulled loose from their vigorous brushing and combing. When enough hair had accumulated they twisted the strands into thin ropes to be worked into brooches of original design—hearts, flowers, or geometric mysteries. It was the fashion of the day, but not everyone could grow such luxuriant locks as they could.

The short pieces were saved to fill pincushions, and the few grey hairs that any of them came across were also relegated to that use, hidden inside a square of blue silk like a tiny pillow. I loved these tiny cushions and begged to hold them and push down the pins until only the heads Showed. Grey hair did not run in the family; nor did curly hair.

I was the exception, of course, being my father's child but at the time I'm thinking of (the making of the hair wreath) I thought curly hair was like a childhood disease, something I would have but get over. They all had healthy, vibrant hair with only a suggestion of a wave that managed well.

Mrs. Adele Baucom, a visitor from another town, admired the tiny brooch wreaths and suggested that their abundant hair would make a beautiful family wreath, a real keepsake that could be framed and passed down in the family.

This lady, no kin, but cousin to the minister's wife and asked to tea as a courtesy to both, said it was a keepsake that might not always be available. When hair lost its color, sometimes it took on a different texture. She didn't say "looked common" but that suggestion hung in the air and gave all of them a start.

"We could try it," Grandmother said when the minister's wife and her cousin left. "I've made the last brooch I mean to make and we've got hair enough and time to do it."

[Part one of a short story by Virginia McKinnon Mann. Click here for part two.]