Place and Time

Many Japanese civilians in the early 1950s had never seen anyone with red hair. J.C. and JoAnn were the center of attention wherever they went, with people stopping to stare or touch their heads to see if the color was real. Once on a car trip, with the kids asleep in the backseat, Lillian managed to get into an accident and kill the engine on her finicky borrowed Citroen. A crowd of Japanese pedestrians promptly formed, and Lillian began to feel nervous; she spoke little Japanese, and the war wasn’t so long ago. She was ready to panic until she realized the passersby were jockeying for space around the car’s rear windows, where they could stare in at the sleeping flame-headed children. This photograph shows a pair of Lillian’s formal zori sandals, brought back from Japan.