She was smart, driven, charismatic and wickedly funny. She grew up on a farm in small town South Carolina. She wanted to be an evangelist. She married right out of high school in wartime fashion. Her first husband, a fighter pilot, died just months after they married, and her mother thought it would be distracting for her to visit a friend in New York. She was "discovered" in a diner by a photographer. She met my grandfather, a twice decorated fighter pilot, at an Air Show where she was modeling the newest fashions on the newest planes. They eventually moved back to South Carolina and married.
My grandmother and her friend Wilhelmina.
The lucrative cosmetic campaign. ;)
My grandparents in a NYC parade.