Mother's Day

Martha Roberts Sidway, age 11, 1919

In photos later in her long life, she assumed that fixed stare whenever she was aware of the camera. This was how she wanted to be seen -- solid, determined, strong.

As her daughter, I didn't always see her that way. I was frustrated by what I saw as her accommodations to social dictates for feminine behavior that signaled less self-confidence, less self-assertion. These seemed at odds with a tough core.

We came up in different times. I have to give it to her that she seemed to trust that however I was negotiating a way in a very different world, I was all right.

I remember asking whether she had any memory of the influenza epidemic of 1918. She didn't much: perhaps the family had kept the children inside without explanation? Buffalo suffered a major wave of infections that autumn, leading to a month long closure order. It was just one more terrible thing that happened in a world whose horrors she chose not to look away from.

The sailor suit in this picture seems odd. She liked boats and all things naval, including naval officers, but this doesn't seem quite characteristic. Perhaps the photographer supplied children brought for portraits with costumes?