Dorothy Wright was born in January 1942, the fifth child of Lloyd and Florence Wright. I imagine this photo was taken in the latter half of 1943, when Dorothy was between eighteen months and two years old.

The door behind Dorothy here is the front entrance to the Wright residence at 406 N Geary.

One thing about the Wright children, as you may have noticed, is that they all started out with very light blonde hair. “Towhead” was the term my father used for that, likening the color of the hair to the light yellow color of flax tow. (“Tow” was a term for coarse, broken fibers separated from finer fibers during processing of flax, hemp or jute.) In most cases the children’s hair didn’t stay that color, though.

Dorothy looks like she’s on a mission in this photo—going somewhere with determination and all the power her little body can generate.

No lack of cuteness, though.