Mrs Swanson and the Wig.
Sometime in the 20’s she was living in San Francisco and was a young woman with a sense of adventure. Perhaps the term “flapper” could be applied to her. She had heard that a new hairstylist had come to town from Paris. He was offering the latest in Parisian coiffures. It was all the rage. It was expensive. She gathered her dollars together and went with a friend to try a new style. I’m not knowledgeable as to what exactly was done, perhaps a snip here and there, perhaps some strong lotions, some rinses, some electric curlers, I don’t know but the result was amazing. So beautiful, so stylish. Unfortunately, after a day or so, all of her hair fell out. She was as bald as a billiard ball.
That it was disconcerting was an understatement but she decided to make the best of it. Having been a brunette she always wanted to be a blond so she decided to go out and buy herself a long blond wig, perhaps to look like Marion Davies or Thelma Todd from the silents. It was a platinum wig that hung down around her shoulders with a profusion of curls. It made her stunningly attractive. She received beaucoup invitations from the young men of San Francisco to dances and jazz balls. She also bought herself a few fashionable dresses. It was the life of a debutant.
For one particular occasion she bought a long-sleeve dress with some cleavage, though, to be modest about it, perhaps it wasn’t. The dress had a row of small buttons along the sleeves to the wrist. She met her date at a ballroom and the band began to play a fox trot. Slow – slow – quick – quick. They got up to dance. Perhaps the expression of the day was “to cut a rug”. It was most exciting, swinging about and tossing her blond curls over her shoulders. During one particular number, as the young man twirled her around, dancing like Fred and Ginger. While holding his hand she swung out to the left with her arm extended. Unfortunately, as she swung out, the strands of the wig caught on the small buttons above her wrist. The wig immediately flew off with centrifugal force thereby revealing her alopecia totalis for all the world to see. The young man took one look at her, dropped her hand and flew through the doorway into the night. She never saw him again. She picked-up the wig, adjusted it on her pate as best she could and then fled into the anonymity of Knob Hill.
Gradually the hair returned. Gradually her social life returned. She got a job with the San Francisco Examiner and apparently did well. She married a newspaper man, not William Randolph, but eventually they moved back to the Seattle area which is where I met her and where she told me this story. We became friends and she later gave me a wooden seagull.