A story about mom before she was mom

A box of secrets

Before my mom was my mom, she was a young woman learning about herself. At age 20, she moved from the Midwest looking for a bigger, bolder life.

She found it in the City of Angels.

Forty years later, mom passed away, leaving behind a box full of letters, photos, and secrets from a life she never talked about. Barely even mentioned.

This story is an anthropology of her love life in the disco Decade, with charm wrapped up in the questions that may never be answered.

“Just as all these things are new, you know what I say is true, that I'll be loving you always.”

Stevie wonder

The timeline

When we found the (nearly 200) letters, they were an assorted mess & beautiful mystery. It was fun to untangle the plot, meet the characters, & chronologize the story.

The memories in the box span from year 1970 (age 16) while mom still lives in her hometown in Ohio, to year 1982 (age 28) when she gets engaged to be married to dad.