When she was in her early 20s in the early 1940s, before any of her four children were born, my beautiful birth mother Betty Campbell Workman Cazad posed for these two epic photos taken by my birth father Bob Workman. Never could I have imagined I’d lay eyes on pictures of Betty holding a shotgun or contorting herself into a backbend.
But during last week’s trip to Colorado to celebrate my shared birthday with my brother Crys and our sister Terry, who were raised by Betty and reunited 19 years ago with me, the baby she placed for adoption in 1961, I saw for the first time these and dozens of other long-ago treasured memories of my biological family.
I’m sure all of the vintage B&W images of Betty and of Crys, Terry and our late brother Robin as kids were taken by our father Bob. There are also a number of photos of Bob himself, no doubt taken by Betty, some possibly by his mother Kathryn, who died at the sadly young age of 52 in 1945 — when Crys was just a year and a half old.
Bob made photography a huge hobby by developing his own photos into the small prints I’m sure you’ve seen that used to have white scalloped borders. (After I snapped copies of many of them with my phone, I cropped off the borders.)
The photo of Betty doing her best Annie Oakley impression is too priceless for words. I’m quite certain Betty, who from everything I’ve learned about her and seen in photos always exuded elegance, grace and class, never pulled the trigger on a gun.
Brother Crys, who turned 80 when we celebrated together Feb. 28, recalls Bob having a couple of shotguns. So Bob likely said to Betty at their home in Huntington, West Virginia, “Why don’t you hold one of these like you’re aiming to shoot and I’ll take some pictures of you in the backyard?” Dolled up in one of her nice dresses (I’m curious what color it actually was) and high heels, Betty was a more than willing subject. Love the Radio Flyer red wagon behind her.
As for the bathing suit photo of her demonstrating more limberness than I’ve ever dreamed of, how cool to see Betty showing off her pre-motherhood flexibility. There were a couple of other pics of her lying out on that same sunny day, wearing sunglasses and posing for her husband, whom she’d married when she was 18 and he was 22. They married Sept. 20, 1939, six days before Bob’s 23rd birthday.
Those were clearly happier times, before Bob’s drinking and other demons he couldn’t overcome led to their 1959 divorce. Their seeming inability to stay away from each other in the coming year is why I’m here, although he ultimately sealed their split with an unfortunate drunken display of machismo not long after their May 1960 dalliance.
More wonderful old birth family treasures to come (including below)! 
A Life of Words 