“This Is Your Mom”: The Story Behind the Cover of Connected: Finding My Truth

Donna Koloski, also known as Donna Kole, at English Bay in Vancouver on August 9, 1953. Photograph by Ed Cosgrove.

An Envelope I Never Expected

In October 1997, an envelope arrived from someone I did not know.

Inside was a copy of an old photograph. Written on the back were four words:

This is your mom.

The smiling young woman in the polka dot bikini was my biological mother.

I had spent years searching for pieces of her life, and suddenly, there she was.

Before She Was Donna

Before she was Donna, her name was Camilla Marilyn. Her siblings never cared for the name, so they began calling her Donna. The name stayed.

Depending on the record, her surname appeared as Kole, Cole, Koloski, Kolosky, Kulchlsky or Kulchisky.

Finding my mother often meant following one name after another and hoping each one would bring me a little closer to the truth.

The Photograph Vancouver Almost Never Saw

On August 9, 1953, Donna was sixteen and working as a fashion model in Vancouver, British Columbia.

That morning, she took a leap of faith and stepped onto Sunset Beach along English Bay wearing an itsy bitsy polka dot bikini from Paris.

In 1953, that was enough to cause quite a stir.

People began gathering outside the bathhouse, where Donna met photojournalist Ed Cosgrove. He photographed her alongside Lily Grouix, who was wearing a one piece bathing suit.

Ed hurried back to The Province, believing he had captured what may have been Vancouver’s first news photographs of a bikini.

The editors refused to print them. The bikini was considered too revealing for the time.

Donna had told them she was eighteen so she could be photographed. In truth, she was only sixteen, just two months away from her seventeenth birthday.

The story never ran, and the photographs were eventually placed in the Vancouver Archives.

Then, forty four years later, one of them found its way to me.

Lily Grouix, left, and Donna Koloski, also known as Donna Kole, outside the bathhouse at English Bay in Vancouver on August 9, 1953. Photograph by Ed Cosgrove.

Finding Lily

My search eventually led me to Lily, the woman standing beside my mother in the photograph.

Finding Lily gave me something no archive ever could. She was a living connection to my mother and to that remarkable day.

Lily and I began corresponding in 2009, and we spoke on the telephone almost every month. In August 2015, I finally had the pleasure of meeting her at her home in Langley.

She had filled her office with memories of the day she met my mother.

Lily and Donna met only once, on August 9, 1953, but Lily never forgot her.

Lily passed away on March 10, 2020. I miss her and will always be grateful for the stories and memories she shared with me. I am also thankful that I remain connected with her daughter, Lindsay.

Over the years, several stories about my mother were published with incorrect names, dates and details. I sincerely thank journalists Ethan Baron and Gordon Clark for helping me separate fact from rumor and discover more about who my mother truly was.

One Mystery Remains

After years of searching, I finally confirmed that the bikini came from Paris.

There is still one question I would love to answer:

Where did my mother buy it in Vancouver?

Was it sold by a local boutique or department store that imported fashions from Paris? Does anyone recognize the designer, the style or the distinctive polka dot fabric?

I was also told that photographs of my mother and the bikini were once included in a traveling exhibition shown in Montreal, Ottawa, Edmonton and Vancouver. I have never been able to locate any information about that exhibition.

If you know about vintage swimwear, Paris fashion or Vancouver history, I would be grateful to hear from you. Perhaps you recognize the bikini, remember the exhibition or know which Vancouver stores carried fashions from Paris in 1953.

Please share this story with anyone who may hold another piece of the puzzle.

A Piece of My Mother That Came Home

This photograph now appears on the front cover of my book, Connected: Finding My Truth.

To others, it may be a fascinating moment from Vancouver’s past. To me, it is a piece of my mother that somehow found its way home.

The photograph is black and white, but I know one detail the camera could not preserve.

The polka dots were pink.

Pink was my mother’s favorite color.

The front cover of Connected: Finding My Truth, featuring Donna and Lily at English Bay in Vancouver on August 9, 1953. Cover photo courtesy of The Province/ Postmedia