Hair wreath (c. 1880)

Hair wreath, front view (c. 1880). Image courtesy of Leslee (Blakey) Stowell (1996).


Hair wreath, top view (c. 1880). Image courtesy of Leslee (Blakey) Stowell (1996).

In January 1997, Verla Williams wrote the following that tells the story of the provenance of the wreath:

. . . Mom and I visited Gordon and family in Denver in August 1996. In the course of a conversation, Gordon mentioned that he had given to Leslee an old framed "picture" that he had gotten from Mom which was made from hair. It jogged my memory that in the Norwegian letter I have (it is included in the Roe book) which is written by Anna (Roe) Berry (sister of Anders Roe) to Anders she is asking for locks of hair from each of them. I believe that the "picture" which Lez has is the result. Gordon drove us over to Lez' so I could get a picture of it, not knowing that my camera was malfunctioning. Anyway, Lez has since sent me pictures. I have made copies of them, along with the translation of Anna's letter (also the Norwegian letter on the back side). My copier doesn't do the pictures justice but maybe you can tell that the flowers are all made of hair and mounted in quite a deep box. It looked like a shoe or boot box. Then an oval frame was attached to the front of the box.

There is no firm way of documenting that this is what Anna made, but since it is in the family, since it is very old, from now on it will be the family tradition that this "picture" is indeed the one made by Anna Roe from locks of hair supplied by members of her family. I am putting this page in my Roe book - maybe you want to do the same.

Verla A. Williams

I would agree that the preponderance of the evidence points toward the wreath being the one spoken of in Anna ROE's letter dated 4 Mar 1879.