The oldest picture of Grandmother Antonina shows her with her hair close to her head, pulled back, with no parting, and delicate pencil-thick waves going all the way to the neckline, which she most likely made with heated scissor irons. This photo has no date, but I can assume it was taken before Grandmother turned twenty-four. I can make an educated guess because she bobbed her hair soon after moving to Warsaw in In Warsaw, though, short hair was all the rage.
Her three sistersβeven the eldestβwould never have thought of doing away with their braids. Their hair went down below their buttocks and they could easily sit on it.
My future grandmother no longer had the protection against germs that long hair provided and could fall prey to all and sundry ailments, developing anemia, experiencing debilitating headaches, even becoming infertile. While city attitudes toward women cutting their tresses had by then become more liberal, in small towns and villages the daring ones were branded morally delinquent and sentenced a priori to eternal damnation.
No wonder my great-grandmother was upset and begged her headstrong daughter to put on a scarf when she went out. When my grandmother committed what to her mother was an unthinkable act, short haircuts had already been in vogue for quite a while.
Women had worn their hair short before, but the cut had never become as popular as in the s. During the French Revolution, for example, women had their locks cut off in back before they were led to the guillotine.
