I was sorting through my library of over 500 books and came across, of all things, my ‘baby book’. Inside I found more photos of my mother, Violet, (Wild Violets, a novel) during her flapper days in San Francisco. Most exciting was to find this newspaper clipping featuring her on the team of a semi-pro, female basketball team. Sadly, I did not find the article. She saved enough of her earnings with the winning team to buy a bar and grill on Fulton Street in SF.
This photo is from a costume party she held at her bar.
And this in her camping/hunting garb. No surprise, it resembles what the heroines of the day in Hollywood wore.
Here she is sitting on the porch of the cabin. She used to laugh and quip: ‘I had to sit all prim and proper because the zipper in my pants had broken’. Check out her boots.
Last but not least, here is a studio photo of Violet (on the right) with her sister, Gladys. She was a stunner and never wanted for men…always buzzing around and not always a good thing.
If you want to read more please check out my novel based on her life as a flapper during the hot jazz, cold gin, dance all night road houses, speakeasy days in San Francisco. Available in e-books and audio.
After documenting my mother’s colorful childhood in the primordial forests of Washington State, I wrote a story of Violet as a grown woman with children of her own. She has left her small home town in the Pacific Northwest to pursue a successful basketball career and with her earnings, she buys a bar and grill. She is a ‘flapper’ in every sense of the word; working all day and playing all night. While her teenage daughter raises her seven year old son, Violet is out on the town with her latest man de’jour. Dressed in her signature red dress, she is the toast of the town and owner of a speakeasy where she hosts the cream of San Francisco’s society, city politicians, bishops, and Hollywood celebrities.
But there is an underbelly of corruption, grifters, the mob, excess, and neglect in Violet’s life. Her two children are an afterthought and she chooses her men over their well being time and time again. Their childhood needs are always trumped by her self-indulgent desires. The two children are possessions that she can put down or pick up again on a whim, showing them off to her current beau or friends and then forgotten. And when they get in her way, she gets rid of them.
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Amazing story and amazing mother! My mom was also into sports – basketball, ice skating, swimming. We did a lot of things together. And a wonderful tribute that you would write a book with your mother as the main character.