Before my mother married, she spent some time in NYC as an artist and model. I was familiar with her paintings growing up, but she never talked much about her modeling. After she died, I found a scrapbook containing photos and clippings from her college years. I was surprised by one clipping from an unidentified Oklahoma paper, which mentioned she was working for the Harry Conover Agency in NYC. Beneath it, she’d pasted a “Li’l Abner” strip (10/25/47) in which Mammy Yokum visits the Harry Conover Agency. Mammy Yokum was drawn, but Conover and the models were photographed. (Please click on it to see it larger.)

Fortunately, “Li’l Abner” has been reprinted, so I can take a look at a larger and clearer copy. It’s still hard to tell, given the dot matrix, but I think my mother is the one on the right, behind Mammy Yokum. She would have been 20. Typically, she never mentioned this.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)