This picture of my mother, Sharon, and her sister Arlene is prominently displayed every holiday season. It was taken around 1944 on a visit to Chicago to see the holiday decorations. In her own words, my mother describes the day this picture was taken, a story we hadn’t heard before.
“Every year my mother, my sister and I would take the train downtown to get our picture taken and to see the spectacular windows at Marshall Field’s. Here, I’m three or four, and my sister is three years older. This particular year I was wearing all green velvet — leggings, coat and hat.
“After the picture, we were going down the escalator to go to lunch and of course Marshall Field’s was packed with people. I remember I was fascinated with a woman who had about two pounds of rouge on her face; I was staring at her, and mother said to stop.
“When we got to the first floor, I must have turned the wrong way and got lost in the crowd. After a bit a clerk or a customer picked me up and put me on top of the display counter so people could see me better, and my mother said later that when I was up there people were shouting, ‘I’ll take her!’.
“We always went to lunch at a cafeteria downtown. It was so big, and there were so many people. We thought it was amazing because we could pick whatever we wanted to eat.
“It’s just an awesome memory of going to Marshall Field’s at Christmas.”
Editor’s note: The cafeteria where Sharon, her sister and her mother ate lunch was The Forum Cafeteria, at the time the largest and most popular restaurant in Chicago. It operated from 1939 to 1973 at 64 West Madison Avenue, now the site of Three First National Plaza. In its heyday, the art deco-inspired cafeteria served hundreds of people a day, with lines forming as early as 6:00 am. The heavily rouged woman who caught Sharon’s attention was a Forum regular known as The Duchess. A former actress, she was known for wearing fashions from the 1890s, and heavy rouge and makeup to lunch every afternoon.