Longtime Mathews resident Harriet Galbraith has had her image splashed across television screens and in magazines and newspapers across the nation for the past few months, all because of a serendipitous happenstance.

Currently living with her son’s family in San Antonio, Texas, Galbraith was shocked to hear from a woman in January who had by chance purchased two bridal portraits of Galbraith at an auction house in Brookneal, Virginia.

Galbraith said the photos were taken by famed photographer Bradford Bachrach many years ago in Washington, D.C., where she was living and working, engaged to marry CIA officer Jack Galbraith. The dress she wore for the photos wasn’t her wedding dress, but a Christian Dior loaned to her by an old boyfriend’s mother, said Galbraith. She said her own mother was “so proud,” and Galbraith kept a copy of one of the poses for herself and gave her mother the other copy, as well as the other pose.

Galbraith’s mother died in 1978. At the time, she was liv...