My Great Aunt Edna
Nov. 15th, 2010 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunchofgrapesI was talking with a co-worker friend this morning about Thanksgiving plans how we both like big family gatherings where relatives you only ever see at the holidays bring dishes of things you'd never otherwise eat - like mashed turnips and mincemeat pie. This got me to thinking about my Aunt Edna.
It took me a while to remember how she was related. She was my great grandfather's younger sister. My great grandfather passed away in 1970 and Aunt Edna's husband had to have passed away not long after because she was always at every holiday gathering alone. Well, not exactly alone. Aunt Edna didn't drive so she always came with my great grandmother. Aunt Edna was the epitome of 1960's. Early 1960's. She always wore a print dress a la Aunt Bee from the Andy Griffith Show, with stockings that rolled below the knee and those gray orthopedic shoes. She didn't have that boofy coif that grandma's tended to favor - hers was more like a page boy with bangs that I think she might have tried to curl. But she was always sporting those black and metal framed glasses that kine of resembled the Navy issue birth control glasses. At some point she had cat glasses but the black and metal frames always won out.
Aunt Edna, like most women who lived through the dust bowl and the depression, had a hard life. Her hands could probably rip a phone book, her ankles were thick as tree trunks, and her face was lined like an alligator purse. But she was a kind, quiet, proper woman who was always a fixture at the table with the rest of the women during every holiday gathering. I heard that she and her husband (cannot remember his name) worked a farm on an oil lease until he passed away and I think she might have even kept it going for a while after. To be honest I never really knew where she lived. She just appeared at every holiday gathering and mostly kept to herself.
I always looked forward to Thanksgiving the most because hey, what's not to love about a holiday centered on food? But mostly I loved it because Aunt Edna would bring the best deviled eggs I have ever had! She would also bring the pitted black olives that my cousins and I would put on the tips of our fingers and run around the house like alien frogs. And when we wanted more pie, she was always the one to tell us we were looking too thin and needed to fatten up a little. Aunt Edna never had kids so as I got older, I figured that's why she never really knew what to say to us - other than we needed to fatten up a little (and eventually we did). We weren't particularly close and I don't even remember when she passed away, but it's interesting that after she died, we stopped having the holiday gatherings. Everyone started doing their own thing for Thanksgiving and the holiday was never the same again.
Looking back, I'm grateful I grew up when I did. I'm grateful I had an Aunt Edna and a connection to what she represented, even if I didn't really appreciate it at the time. She was black and white in a world that was rapidly turning to color. She was the 40's, the 50's, and the 60's, all rolled into one sturdy, yet worn frame. There aren't any Aunt Edna's left in the world. They passed away many years ago. But the memories they left will always be some of my favorites.
It took me a while to remember how she was related. She was my great grandfather's younger sister. My great grandfather passed away in 1970 and Aunt Edna's husband had to have passed away not long after because she was always at every holiday gathering alone. Well, not exactly alone. Aunt Edna didn't drive so she always came with my great grandmother. Aunt Edna was the epitome of 1960's. Early 1960's. She always wore a print dress a la Aunt Bee from the Andy Griffith Show, with stockings that rolled below the knee and those gray orthopedic shoes. She didn't have that boofy coif that grandma's tended to favor - hers was more like a page boy with bangs that I think she might have tried to curl. But she was always sporting those black and metal framed glasses that kine of resembled the Navy issue birth control glasses. At some point she had cat glasses but the black and metal frames always won out.
Aunt Edna, like most women who lived through the dust bowl and the depression, had a hard life. Her hands could probably rip a phone book, her ankles were thick as tree trunks, and her face was lined like an alligator purse. But she was a kind, quiet, proper woman who was always a fixture at the table with the rest of the women during every holiday gathering. I heard that she and her husband (cannot remember his name) worked a farm on an oil lease until he passed away and I think she might have even kept it going for a while after. To be honest I never really knew where she lived. She just appeared at every holiday gathering and mostly kept to herself.
I always looked forward to Thanksgiving the most because hey, what's not to love about a holiday centered on food? But mostly I loved it because Aunt Edna would bring the best deviled eggs I have ever had! She would also bring the pitted black olives that my cousins and I would put on the tips of our fingers and run around the house like alien frogs. And when we wanted more pie, she was always the one to tell us we were looking too thin and needed to fatten up a little. Aunt Edna never had kids so as I got older, I figured that's why she never really knew what to say to us - other than we needed to fatten up a little (and eventually we did). We weren't particularly close and I don't even remember when she passed away, but it's interesting that after she died, we stopped having the holiday gatherings. Everyone started doing their own thing for Thanksgiving and the holiday was never the same again.
Looking back, I'm grateful I grew up when I did. I'm grateful I had an Aunt Edna and a connection to what she represented, even if I didn't really appreciate it at the time. She was black and white in a world that was rapidly turning to color. She was the 40's, the 50's, and the 60's, all rolled into one sturdy, yet worn frame. There aren't any Aunt Edna's left in the world. They passed away many years ago. But the memories they left will always be some of my favorites.
