My first reaction when I saw that this week's prompt was "Favorite Photo," was an inward groan and the question of how I could pick just one. A moment later, an image came to mind, of my Grandma Rose as a child, and the recollection that the image had an interesting story with it. It may not be my favorite photo of all time, but it is my favorite photo of Grandma Rose as a child.
The photo shows Grandma staring at the viewer, her round face framed by a short, blunt bob cut with thick bangs. She is wearing a dress with a wide white collar and a large dark bow. The most striking element of the picture is the lighting. Much of the background is in deep shadow, and Grandma's chest is slashed by strips of light and dark, like sun shining through a blind.
All through their lives, my mom and her siblings heard the story that Grandma was supposed to have been Spanky in the Our Gang (Little Rascals) films, but she lost the job because the studio found out that she was a girl and they wanted a boy. It seems like a strange story because she lived in Omaha, Nebraska, far from Hollywood studios, but it turned out to have a kernel of truth.
I found it quite by accident. Stroesser, Grandma's maiden name, is fortunately pretty uncommon. It is possible to trace a genealogical relationship between most Stroessers in North America. Therefore, in newspaper research, I can narrow the search down to Omaha newspapers and use just "Stroesser" as the search term, and almost every result will have something to do with Grandma's family.
One day I was combing through the results of such a search and stumbled upon an article entitled "More Entries in Davey Lee Resemblance Contest." Davey Lee was a child actor of the era, perhaps most recognizable today as Sonny Boy of the eponymous Al Jolson song. He played the character in two films, The Singing Fool and Sonny Boy. The lookalike contest was being put on by the Omaha World-Herald, with grand prizes of $50, and every participant invited to attend a theater party with the chance of meeting Davey Lee himself.
And there, in the top row of entries, was a trimmed down version of that interesting photo of Grandma Rose. It was her entry into the Davey Lee resemblance contest! This explained that strange story about Spanky of the Little Rascals. Although Davey Lee wasn't Spanky, he was another child star of the era. Grandma was five years old at the time, and no doubt her recollection of events was colored by later assumptions and suppositions. Perhaps she thought at the time that winning the contest would make her a movie star. And perhaps someone in her family commented that she didn't win because she was a girl. The story could easily have grown from there.
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