Back in the fifties, during our time of need, my mother did whatever she could to help out financially and that included taking in foster children. It was a challenge for all of us including my little sister. She had been the center of attention since birth but with these foster children everything changed. We had to adapt to their needs and some of them definitely needed special attention.
One of the foster children, a sweet little girl around four or five years old, had naturally curly hair, with real tight curls close to her scalp. They were beautiful. I’m guessing my mother bought some play scissors that were plastic so my baby sister, who was also four or five, and our little foster girl could cut out paper dolls and paper dresses to put on the paper dolls and I was to keep an eye on them. Our little foster child decided to cut some of my little sister’s hair and my little sister decided to do the same to her. It’s hard to believe that a pair of plastic toy scissors could indeed cut hair but they did. My little sister had a few locks cut off and our curly-haired foster child had, what I recall, a few almost bald spots. I remember a little panic ensued on my part because I was thinking my mother would hit the roof when she saw this. I tried fluffing up my sister’s locks but it didn’t work. I tried pulling the foster child’s curls over to cover up the missing curls—that didn’t work either.
Bless my dear sweet mother because when she saw this mess she calmed the entire situation down and I remember the little ones just laughed and went on playing with their paper dolls and the scissors were history, never to be seen again. I also remember my mother saying that the hair on both children will grow back in time so all will be well again.
The moral of this story is things can and will eventually return to normal.
Contact Helen at tct@pageone-inc.com.
