Memories of a Favorite Aunt

My favorite aunt was not either of my parents' sisters, but, rather, my mother's aunt. She was my maternal grandmother's baby sister, 11 years her junior, and only ten years older than my mother.Because of my aunt's "between generations" age, she was a lot closer to my mother than she might have been otherwise.

My aunt babysat my mother quite often, one time taking her to the movies when she was fifteen and my mother was five. Aunt Mary got so engrossed in this particular movie that she did not notice that my mother hadn't returned from a bathroom break. At the end of the movie, she finally noticed my mother was gone and ran out of the theater to frantically search for her. She found her within minutes, standing outside a candy store, looking in the window.

Aunt Mary had a rather tough life once she grew up. She married a Norwegian immigrant at age 19, who'd been one of her mother's boarders. He turned out to be a disappointing husband, an alcoholic and a hypochrondriac, and she ended up being their main support for most of their marriage.

They had five children, only one of whom lived, having lost two sets of twins. She ended up with six grandsons, whom she spoiled shamelessly, as her son and his wife were, at best, indifferent, if not neglectful parents.

She spent most of her working life as a chambermaid for the finest hotel in the state capital, eventually being promoted to head chambermaid. Though she'd only gone to the eighth grade in school, she was a whiz at crossword puzzles -- she always had several booklets of them to do whenever we visited her.

The most interesting thing that happened on her job was the time she went into one room to clean it one day in 1960, only to find then-candidate John F. Kennedy standing in front of the mirror combing his hair. Security back then was nothing like it is today, obviously! She said that he was quite gracious, spending a few moments chatting with her.

A close second to that had to be when the popular 1960s band, Herman and the Hermits, stayed at the hotel. They were equally as charming with her as JFK, and after they'd checked out, she brought home a pair of purple satin jeans that Herman had left behind, which ended up in my sister's closet.

She remained close to my mother for the rest of my mother's life. After we moved away in 1967, she and my uncle would periodically drive the 300 miles to come stay with us for a weekend. I remember she had a battered black 1960 Mercury Comet station wagon that she refused to drive more than 50 miles an hour on the interstate.

Whenever we went back home to visit for a weekend, we always chose to stay with Aunt Mary. Though her home was very small, we felt most comfortable and at home with her. Indeed, my mother's fatal stroke occurred on just one of those weekends.

She outlived my mother for six years, though not in good health. A year after my mother's death, she had a stroke of her own, but lingered for five more years in various living situations, as her no-good son sold her home and everything in it when she was laid up in the hospital.

I last saw her when I was nineteen, about six months before her death. Her speech was severely impaired from the stroke, but I listened carefully and was able to understand what she was saying, which pleased her to no end, as her caregivers evidently did not spend much time trying to listen.

I miss her still to this day.