My mom was a beauty queen!

In her younger years, my mother, Evelyn Ragan, turned heads. She was a natural beauty—graceful, confident, and full of life. She and my dad were newlyweds just before he shipped out to North Africa during World War II, and they were deeply, unmistakably in love.

Like so many couples separated by war, they found ways to stay close across the distance. Mom would send him letters, of course—but also photographs. Plenty of them. Some were what you might call her “swimsuit shots,” playful and a little daring for the time, meant to remind Dad of what he was fighting for. While he was overseas, she even did some modeling work for the Spiegel Catalog while he attended college. She had both the look and the presence for it.

One story from those war years always stood out.

At the time, Betty Grable was the undisputed queen of pin-ups. Her most famous photograph showed her in a swimsuit, turned slightly away, smiling over her shoulder while holding a large Valentine. It was an image seen by servicemen all over the world.

While working at the base at Soldier’s Field in Greenville, Texas, someone convinced my mom to recreate that pose for Valentine’s Day. She went along with it, probably thinking it was all in good fun. But the result was more than just a playful imitation—it landed her above the fold as the lead story in the base newspaper.

Then came the twist no one could have predicted.

A few weeks later, Betty Grable herself was photographed on a movie set holding that very newspaper—positioned just right so the front page was clearly visible. And there was my mother, smiling back from the headline. For a brief moment, their worlds overlapped in the most unexpected way.

Mom received quite a bit of attention from that photo, and somewhere in Tunisia, North Africa, my dad got more than his fair share of good-natured ribbing from the other soldiers.

Even now, when I look at those photos from the 1940s—this striking, glamorous young woman staring back at the camera—it still catches me off guard.

That’s my mom.