Red Hair and a story about my grandmother

 When I was pregnant for the first time I fully expected to have a redheaded baby. Lauren came out with a full head of jet black hair.

Alana’s was a little lighter but there was no red.

I look at grandsons Elliot and Sawyer for any signs of red. Sawyer has some potential in the right light.

With my newest grandson Coby, I actually had a dream that he was a ginger, but so far, it doesn’t look like my genes are having much say in the hair color of any of my offspring.

You wouldn’t know it if you met me today, but when I was younger I had bright copper penny red hair. In fact, everyone in my immediate family was a redhead.

Mom was more auburn like me. My dad was flaming ginger. The family lore is that I am lucky to exist, because while my parents liked each other quite a bit when they met, the hair color was almost a deal breaker. Neither of them wanted to date a redhead. 

Each of them recalls saying something similar to their parents

“I met someone wonderful, but they have awful red hair.”

They got past that initial aversion and were happily married for more than 50 years. Ultimately, the joke was on them. They had three daughters, with each one having brighter red hair than the next. 

We would stop traffic when we went out together.

Our hair was distinctive enough that we could sometimes pass for each other as if we were twins.

I remember once covering for Marjie when she was working at the grill in the Carnegie Mellon Student Union. She wasn’t able to get the day off that she needed so I just took her place. I did get her in a bit of trouble for being too generous with the ice-cream scoops, but in general no one was the wiser. 

My paternal grandmother Lena was also a redhead.

Her younger sister Regina shared a wonderful story that a cousin captured when doing an oral history project.

Before she was married around the turn of the century, Lena was a young girl living with her uncle on the lower east side of Manhattan.

One day she was returning home on the subway and she noticed a young man staring at her intently. It was making her a bit uncomfortable, so she moved to a different car. He followed her.

She moved again and once again he followed her. She was relieved when she arrived at her stop, but concerned when she noticed that he was also getting off.

She started walking faster. He continued to follow. She ended up running the rest of the way. She got to her uncle's house safely but she was out of breath and a bit shaken up; she told him that someone had followed her home.

The uncle took her by the hand and knocked on the doors of all the neighbors to see if she could recognize the person who had followed her.

At the second or third place they tried, the door opened and there he was.

Her uncle yelled, “Were you following my niece?”

The poor frightened young man spoke up. He had just moved there. All of the buildings looked exactly alike and he couldn’t remember how to get to where he was staying, but he had seen the beautiful girl with the memorable bright red hair, and he knew that she lived on the same floor.

He had been so relieved when he spotted her and was trying to keep her in sight so that he could simply find his way home.

There are no real takeaways from this post except that stories like this can be treasures. They are also easily lost to time.

If you have older relatives, sit with them and capture these anecdotes while you still can. You will find that even folks with some memory issues might not remember what they had for breakfast but can recall some tales from long ago as if they happened yesterday. Your children, and your grandchildren, will be glad you did!