[air gusting] - [Linda] Once a year, we would go downtown.

And so, it was a very special thing for me because my mother would get me dressed up in the best, in a hat, in a coat, and my little tights and my Mary Jane shoes and my gloves.

You never went downtown Louisville unless you had your gloves and hat on.

And so, we would go downtown at Christmas time, take the bus, and we would look at all of the windows.

And that was such a special time for me because I can literally lose myself in those windows.

[faint carol music] - [Narrator] The Louisville Courier Journal, Monday, December 25th, 1978.

It has been 27 years since a photographer hid himself and his camera in a downtown Louisville store window where a band of merry elves was going about its Christmas chores.

What the photographer, Barney Cowherd, came up with has become a classic around the world.

[mellow music] Yet since 1951, when the photograph was made, the identity of the child has remained a mystery.

[mellow music] Was she just visiting Louisville?

Did her parents never see the picture in The Courier Journal?

And later, in The Family of Man exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, [mellow music] the name of the child still has not surfaced.

[mellow music] Who was she?

Where is she?

[mellow music] - When I look at the expression on that little girl, I know that expression.

And I know what was going on in my mind at that time.

I had like crossed over into another world.

I'm real good at that.

And it was kind of like a heavenly thing.

I actually think maybe, my two front teeth were missing in that picture, but I can't be certain.

- I just looked down and I looked right up and I saw this man, I thought it was a ladder or something, came racing to the ladder, he had his camera on there, which I didn't know exactly what it was or anything.

But anyway, I looked straight at him and he took my picture.

- I've showed it to a couple people and they've looked at it and they said that the eyes are one thing, and then the hair, I've got crazy hair in the front, this crazy looking eyebrow over here, 'cause I've got that crazy looking eyebrow.

[Katherine laughing] And then the bangs that... - [Katherine] You were never happy with your bangs, ever?

- Never.

- I still remember my mother putting me in that hat and coat, you know, and making sure that I looked perfect.

But to go downtown at Christmas time, was absolutely the best part of my childhood that I can remember.

- If you sit and stare at her messed up hair in that picture, you can see the off-cut that she has in every one of those other pictures.

Her mother would cut her hair and it was one place in there that she always left a gap.

And if you look, even with the hair kind of messed up, it falls in there.

- And I remember my mother cutting my bangs as straight as that is [laughing].

- [Barbara] My sister called me and said that she had just read that you were going to do a documentary on it.

She said, "You've got to call him.

You've got to call him."

But I didn't tell her I had already met you [laughs].

- [Interviewer] Now why did she feel that way?

Is it just- - Oh, because it was me.

She's convinced it's me.

They're all convinced it's me.

I'm the only one convinced it's not.

- I just see myself in that picture.

I see that face in the mirror every day.

- You probably don't see that, but those are little ear muffs.

They covered your ears.

And so, that hat was velvet or whatever it was.

And these little parts covered your ear.

- [Interviewer] Do you recognize that little girl when you look at the picture?

Do you feel like you recognize her?

- I do, it really, I...

Even if it isn't, and it's proven not to be, I still think it's me.

[muffler humming] - It's a picture that really draws you in more as you're looking at it than from across the room.

It's very subtle and, you know, there's a lot of innocence in the young girl and all of that comes through in the photograph.

- Shot at the old Stewart's building in downtown, the department store, during a Christmas exhibit, I was told.

And he got behind the exhibit and either through an opening in the exhibit to the window, to the people who would come, the public would come and stand two or three deep, maybe more on Christmas time to look at the fancy display.

- [Pat] His work is pretty incredible in all aspects, whether it's lighting or composition or storytelling.

[bright music] [bright music] [bright music] [bright music] [mellow music] [gentle piano music] [gentle piano music] [water gurgling] [presenter speaking in German] [presenter speaking in German] [presenter speaking in German] [presenter speaking in German] [presenter speaking in German] [interviewer speaking in German] [presenter speaking in German] [presenter laughing] - Every mother would like to think it's their child, whether they looked like it or not.

And I think that's what my mother wanted so bad.

Well, where?

Oh, okay, "Barbara now 31, Mrs. John Froman, lives with her husband and two daughters in Richmond, Virginia.

'She probably has a third child by now,' her mother said.

We always believed the Christmas child to be Barbara.

There's no doubt about it."

And everyone has their story.

I mean there's what, 17 little girls here and there's quite a few stories.

[mellow music] - She had Jenny in '67 when she was 19, and me then, in '69 and you in '71.

So by the time she was 23 years old, she had three kids.

[mellow music] Granny Jo died and then Mee-Maw died and they had the newspaper clippings of the little girl like a couple of years, like two or three years of when the little girl's picture was printed in the paper.

And then that's when mom had said, you know, they always thought it was her.

And then, because that was in like around '90, I think that was, and then in '93, was The Louisville Magazine when she went to the store with you and Jenny and Joseph Best and saw the magazine.

And she goes, "That's the picture.

That's the," you know, "the little girl, that's me."

And she never said, you know, "I should tell 'em it's me or anything like that."

She was just matter of fact, "That's me."

And you know, Mee-maw and Granny Jo always thought that was me.

[mellow piano music] - You didn't have a lot, you know, unless you were very wealthy, which not that many people were.

So to come downtown and look in those windows, that brings back memories to probably, a lot of women my age.

- [Katherine] Well, we also have, look at this, the original 1951 paper that it was printed in, the... - Well you- - A copy of it.

- You know, my parents probably never got the paper in 1951 because, I think dad had just started working at a job and they weren't very rich, they were poor.

And so I imagine a paper would've been a luxury.

So I'm sure they never saw this.

- [Guest] Can I sit down?

- Yeah, 'cause like I told you, you're the first group that we've got three daughters, three daughters to talk to.

- I think the only thing she ever did, she wanted to do was went to a Tina Turner concert.

I think it's the only time she ever spent money herself.

- And she got to go.

- And she got to go.

- She loved Tina Turner.

- [Daughter] 'Cause she always to go to Vegas, she never went on a trip.

I don't think mom ever saw an ocean.

- Nope, she never- - Mom never saw an ocean.

- [Daughter] If she went somewhere, it was taking us to a hotel for a night.

That was our vacation.

- That was our vacation.

And we got to swim in the indoor pool.

- Yeah.

- It's a very unique story.

And when I was in my teenage years, my mother showed me a magazine and it was front-page.

She was front-page, this girl and she said, "That's me."

But she was a very plain woman.

She did not need anyone to give her a second look, and that's all she ever spoke of it.

- I have multiple copies of it upstairs.

Every time it was like printed in The Courier Journal, I would keep that particular copy of it and did that for a lot of years.

- I could say that's definitely Portia.

But, her hair was never cut short like that.

The hair is not Portia.

- Well, now Gary did give me a haircut once.

- Mm-mm, she always kept your hair curled, [indistinct] was a great curler.

She was a hairdresser.

- Yeah, oh.

- Oh, yeah.

- Yes, this is the one I recall, yes.

And I'm looking at these pictures and I'm thinking, "You know, Tootie is a better match than most of these."

- [Interviewer] And what did she think?

- Well, she said no.

- Mom saw her picture in The Courier Journal for quite a few years and did not want anyone to know it was her.

She thought it would be worth more if it was anonymous.

- My mom would say, "Well, if it's her mom, that's wonderful."

It wouldn't phase her, she wouldn't have cared if it wasn't her.

We would care more than she would've.

She would've been like, "Well, that's great that it's her mom.

That's wonderful, I'm so happy."

You know, she wouldn't have blinked an eye.

[mellow music] [mellow music] - All these women, because they're around mom's age, it's just been like being around mom for a little bit, because they all remember the same stuff that our mother would remember.

[mellow music] [mellow music] - [Pat] There's no question about it, that photograph is magic.

[mellow music] A great outfit, great image, great expression, you know, it's of the moment, it's famous.

What more could you ask?

And it's ethereal and I wish we did know who it was.

- [Innes] And I'm not sure how it could be ever definitively, determined.

And I think the mystery is part of the fun.

I think it would be, "All right, well the quest is over and the mystery is over.

And so that's the end of the story."

[mellow music] [mellow music] - [Barbara] I'm not saying it has to be me, I just think the power of the picture is the mystery.

[mellow music] - [Linda] So when you think about it, it's a mesmerizing picture because it's just the epitome of happiness.

[mellow music] [shutter clicking] [mellow music] [mellow music] [mellow music] [mellow music] [mellow music] [mellow music] [bystanders murmuring] [mellow carol music] [crickets chirping] [ambient music]