My mom was a pinup girl!

In her youth, my mother (Evelyn Ragan) was an attractive woman. She and Dad were newlyweds just before he was deployed to North Africa. They were very much in love. She mailed him lots of "swimsuit" pics while he was overseas. She also modeled for Spiegel Catalog in Chicago while Dad was in college.

One interesting story during those war years concerns movie star and actress Betty Grable. Grable's signature photo during those years was posing with a large Valentine, dressed in a swimsuit.

While working on the base at Soldier's Field in Greenville, TX, Mom was convinced to copy that shot for Valentines Day. She ended up above the fold, lead story in the base newspaper.

Fast forward a few weeks and Betty Grable, while on the set of one of her movies, was photographed with that same newspaper, conveniently pointed to the camera, and Mom was on the front page? Mom received a lot of publicity over that photo and Dad got more than his fair share of good-natured ribbing in Tunisia, North Africa where he was camping out at the time.

I feel odd looking at pictures of this beautiful woman in the forties and fifties and realizing, hey that's my mom.