Well here she is in her mid-fifties, rocking a tangerine caftan on her honeymoon in the Bahamas (The Loews Paradise Island Hotel and Villa), and looking totally. freaking. fierce.

The dramatic dress, the perfect frosted hair, not a pore on her face or décolletage, the strappy heels, the gold jewelry, and the ever present cigarette (about to ash on the carpet).

This could be any night at home as well. She would go to a favorite restaurant (Stewart Anderson’s Black Angus, perhaps), and bring home a doggy bag with half of a rare strip steak and some garlic bread. I was usually the lucky recipient of this treat.

This is quintessential Stella.

Stella and her 3 baby sisters – Milly, Lilly and Ruth – shared a flat over Hollands’ Dry Cleaning Store in Fargo, ND for a couple years – circa 1943-1945. (Tidbit of Fargo history: their cousin F. Ralph Hollands owned and operated the dry cleaning store and was also their landlord and diligent chaperone.)

During this time, Stella graduated as an R.N. from St. Luke’s Hospital (also in Fargo), and immediately went to work as a surgical nurse at the VA hospital in Fargo. She took the bus to the VA every day – about half an hour each way.

“But in the morning – on her way to work”, Aunt Milly tells me, “your mother would stand up in the bus and hold on to a strap – all the way to the VA – even if there were seats available! She didn’t want to to sit down because she didn’t want to wrinkle her uniform before she got to work!”

Ja! That’s Mom! (Click picture for larger view!)

Obviously, taken at the END of her shift! (Click picture for larger view!)