I was once a little girl who wore "Shirley Temple" curls

[Siwsan]

Shirley Temple was about the same age as my mother, who grew up watching her movies. She used to style my hair and clothes after her. I'd love to find some of those old photos. I was pretty darned cute.

Reading about her death, today, makes me a little sad.

[JaneyVee]

1. Fun fact I learned today:

Shirley Temple was investigated by congress to determine if she was a communist. When she was only 10yrs old.

[lpbk2713]

2. Musta been one of them pinko Girl Scouts selling cookies.

OMFG ... I really believe it too.

[Siwsan]

3. Something else we have in common! (haha)

Lunacy is definitely not a new political trait.

[pipi_k]

4. OMG you too?

My mom was born two years after Shirley Temple, so she also grew up watching the movies, and she also tortured me with the hair and the clothes.

Here I am in 1957, age 5...

[Siwsan]

5. Awww - cute!

My parents took "slides" instead of photographs so I have a massive project, ahead of me, to transfer them to DVDs.

Full skirted dresses over starched petticoats and the Mary Janes shoes with white anklets - right??

[LiberalEsto]

7. Beautiful!

I'm the same age as you.
My mom, who was born and raised in Estonia, was also a Shirley Temple fan. She tried curling my hair with bobby pins, but my hair is too fine and uncooperative. Then she resorted to home permanents, which I hated.

[tavernier]

6. Much has been made about her being a republican

Why can't we just love her for the wonderful films she gave us? Does everything always have to be about politics??

for your memories of this talented and generous lady!

[Siwsan]

8. I suspect she was not of the odious ilk of republicans

She was an amazingly talented child who grew to be, as you wrote, a very generous lady. And, I admit that I still love to watch her films - the ending of The Little Princess still brings me to tears.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

9. She lived a good long life

I celebrate her art and her legacy, as someone who could melt the coldest heart and whose films will always recall for each of us the innocence and goodness residing within.

[Warpy]

10. I wanted them

but my hair was dark brown and on the way to darkening to black and resolutely Indian straight. Curls in the morning would fall out by noon, even with home perms, the only type allowed by my penny pinching mother.

What amazed me about her even when I was a little kid was her dancing. A six year old who could keep up with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, even doing an easy routine, was remarkable.

What amazed me as an adult was how she made the transition from child star to has been without cracking up and flaming out the way so many of them have.

So I'll mourn her for her talent and her toughness. Her politics were her problem and died with her.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

11. My mother inflicted the dreaded ammonia perms on me too.

I guess our moms just couldn't keep themselves from messing with our hair to get those ringlets. I remember holding a wet rag over my face to breathe through and leaning my head back, and my mom pouring that horrible ammonia solution through my hair. The rollers were white plastic with a black rubber string with a plug on the end to fit in the end of the roller.

Then I came home crying because the kids had picked on me all day at school because of my hair style. Guess her making me into an image of Shirley Temple was more important than me not being bullied at school.



I've talked to a number of other women that are baby boomers who had moms who gave them these horrible perms.

Oh and by the way, the stuff was so caustic I had scabs on my scalp from it. I guess it would be called child abuse.

Finally, when I was in college, I got a haircut at a good salon that worked with my hair instead of against it.

Guess what? I found out I had thick, curly, healthy hair that didn't need any perms. In fact, now I can wash it in the shower, let it dry over night and it has ringlets in it. Now mothers, at least mine, I will never understand.

When I was older she wanted me to be severe looking with no makeup but eyebrow pencil and red lipstick, like Joan Crawford.

So I can't say I have love lost for the hairstyle fashions that Shirley Temple inspired.

[Siwsan]

12. My mom used rags to curl my hair

I'm still not quite sure how she did it, but I think she just twisted and twirled my hair around pieces of cloth. In the morning, out went the rags and I had a head full of curls. Perms came much later -

No perms, curls, or even haircuts now. Just a long, long braid that I can wear down, or pin up. Much easier.