8.20.2010

#6 SISTER the "OLD MAID"





                                     THE OLD MAID
Most people learn what an "OLD MAID" is from a card game.......... the card or person YOU DONT WANT right?  I played "OLD MAID" the game without knowing what exactly an "old maid" was for a very long time.  It wasn't until I heard my mother reference "Sister" with that label, that it even dawned on me that the term actually meant something other than a name for a game.

 
 I found out that an "Old Maid" is someone that never marries or has children, they are someone that lives alone.   That, at least, was what was told to me when I inquired.    It was implied to me by the game and the definition ...... as if there were something "wrong" with being an Old Maid , and they always looked "less than desirable" as they were depicted on the cards, and you were a LOSER if you were "stuck with one."


Charlotte Hawkins
06/28/1907 - 01/15/1988
                                                           such a good and gentle spirit.





"SISTER" is what we called her, but her name was Charlotte. She was also lovingly named, "Lottie" and "Aunt Lottie"  but I didn't remember that fact and was reminded of that recently on facebook.

"Sister" is what my Grandmother called her sister, you see, she was very formal.  She called her mom, "mother" her sister "sister" and we were told to call her "grandmother."  This tradition or habit is what was handed down to her daughters and ultimately to me............. "Sister"  was my Great-Aunt that lived in Arkansas.


I went to Arkansas a few times in my younger years and I don't remember the "specifics" of each visit but I do remember once I got to go with my Grandmother.   I don't remember the ride there but I do remember being there at the house.  I remember the grand pecan trees in the yard with the biggest pecans I had ever seen!  I remember "Uncle Mark" cracking some pecans and that's not all he was good at, he was also good at cracking jokes and he kept Sister and I laughing.  I guess Grandmother didn't see the humor in them?   I remember going up into the attic with Sister's encouragement.  She saved everything and the attic was full of relics from the past.  Stacks of newspapers, letters, trunks, and even a small little coat was hanging up there that was one of theirs when they were little.  I was always told that everything in the attic was either "junk" or "dry rotted" but to me just looking at everything was like finding buried treasures!  :)

Sister was such a good and gentle spirit.

I loved the kitchen in the house.  It was small and not "modernized" everything was older and at the time I didn't realize it but would be called "vintage" by todays standards.  The only thing I didn't like was the oilcloth / tablecloths on the square, chrome and formica table.  I asked Sister why she didn't use a "pretty" tablecloth, and I remember Uncle Mark laughing and Grandmother sternly looking at me........ she said, "they are easier to wipe off."   I don't think Sister had "hired help" to do her laundry like my Grandmother did.  The kitchen was the "central" room in this large house, its where everyone talked, ate, sat, shucked corn, and cracked pecans.  Its the same room that is central in my own house today.  No one comes into my house without coming into the kitchen.    The house she lived in  was the family home and had been inherited by "Sister"  the one that never married.   It had high ceilings and beautiful furnishings, at least to me........... it even had cool door knobs that I had to reach up to turn............ at the entrance to every room.   I remember there were lots of these and also lots of  fireplaces being in the house, but I don't recall a fire being burned in them.  This house was eventually restored to "high standards" and I believe it is on some Historic Registries too.  It was sold to Uncle Mark for $1 by the McCleary Sisters in 1988.  I understand that this town is a Ghost Town, there are no children that want to live there.  I would like to buy the house still, if no one else wants it in the family, heck I will even pay 10000x the 1988 cost if need be.

She was such a good and gentle spirit.

Sister dressed in dresses.  I don't remember seeing her in anything else.  Cotton dresses with big square pockets. Most of them had flowers on them or some other symbol of something she liked or a color she prefered.   Most of the time I believe she wore an apron over her dress to protect it..... if my memory serves me correctly could bake a wonderful pecan pie.  Sister came to visit our house when I was a little girl.   She played with me.  She called my doll by her right name, "Jelly." and she liked make-believe.  She would go into my "pretend" worlds with me, when other adults didn't.  This is the person who taught me what paper dolls were!  Sister and I would cut out figures from the Sears & Robuck Catalog and then also cut out the clothes with little tabs on the edges so that our dolls could wear the latest fashions!  Another activity that Sister introduced to me in the kitchen was the card game of Rummy........Gin Rummy was her favorite.  Sometimes she would laugh so much while we played cards and talked that she took a tissue out of her apron pocket and wiped her eyes.  She had the "real" laugh of a "real person" the kind that made your shoulders hunch over.  It may sound like an oxymoron but she quietly laughed loudly.  Sister also taught me two different types of solitaire games.  I am guessing that she learned all that she knew from being alone.........how to effective entertain and amuse oneself.  Again that is just a guess......... but it kinda fits? I remember how to play the games and card tricks and doodles she taught me and have shown them to most of the children I have loved in my life.  I still know how to do them today and hopefully so do my children and grandchildren.  I believe I adopted a very valuable and useful skill aka survival tool for my entire life.  She also buried treasure in the yard...........pennies, nickels and dimes.  She let me "find" the treasures and made me gasp as she asked me "do you think a fairy god mother left them there for us?"
She was so much fun and the one I "wanted" unlike the Old Maid, that you tried so hard to avoid......
maybe?  she never found anyone that was good enough?

I can count with 10 fingers the amount of times that I remember with  being with Sister, but it is probably more about the times she spent especially with me.  She lived in Arkansas and we lived hours away so the visits were far and in between, not nearly as often as I would have wanted if given a choice.

Sister was such a good and gentle spirit. 

I visited Sister in 1979 when I was 17 years old.  I found her house from memory and the name of the town.
I had not visited there since I was a small child.  I visited with my first husband, Curtis.  We found Parkdale on the map and went there after a visit to Virginia.  We arrived there very early in the morning and waited outside in the car until the sun came up and I saw movement.  I went to the door not "quite" sure I was in the right place.  A very old woman that I did not recognize came to the door.  She had a very white powdered face and yellow surrounded the pupils of her eyes, her teeth were yellow too and this was intensified by the very red lipstick she wore on her lips.  She had on a cotton dress and her hair was pin curled.  This was NOT the sister I remembered, I thought I had the wrong house.   I am sure that I paused a long time as I inspected her for a resemblance of the woman I so fondly remembered.   I found my voice, but I am not sure what I said, and found out "yes" Sister did live there, and this was "Aunt Francis"  a person I really didn't remember but I acted like I did for that visit..I think I was scared not to. .if I were being truthful I thought of an old movie (What ever happened to Baby Jane) when I saw the two of them.   I found out later that she was Sister's "sister in law", was quite nice and and had moved in with Sister after the passing of her husband..........I never really knew Aunt Francis as a matter of fact , she didn't know who I was when I came to the door,..........so it was obvious that she wasn't exactly sent cards , letters and pictures of us growing up. 
I had a great visit and was welcomed into Sister's  home and open arms......... she fed us (home made fried chicken & lemon pie)   and we had showers and then we went on our way to Natchitoches to visit the rest of the family. 
Photo:  Bottom "sister"  Top "aunt francis" 

Sister such a good and gentle spirit.

Sister kept in touch with me in the mail for years.  She sent me stamps that any collector would be proud to their collection.  I have a couple today , but its only a couple, most were lost in a divorce and I will never be able to recover them. She got the stamps from the "junk" in the attic, papers and envelopes she saved for many years in mint condition written in fancy quill ink, specialty stamps etc that were rare even in their own time.  Sister knew a worth........ that the rest of the family regarded as junk........... in both human relationships as well as in objects of sentimental value. 

I did not go to Sisters funeral in 1988 ,  I was pregnant with my youngest daughter who was born a month or so later in February.  I'm not sure where I heard it but............ I heard once that for every death there is a birth and Kelly couldn't have a sweeter spirit........... I wonder if a Fairy God-Mother left her for me?

........ such a good and gentle spirit.

NOTE:  the main character of the  movie below was ironically named "Charlotte"





8.09.2010

#5 To: Monte ........ Love; Foxie



photo credit:  http://www.ballen-photos.com/


Through a child's eyes a Hero looks like many things.  The child in me defined "a hero" as a person who is or has an attribute that is very brave or very valiant or very noble or just about  "very" anything ..........any one thing................as long as they are good at it and / or  it "does" some good for others.  My hero from my childhood was one of my Dad's best buddies............... Monte LedBetter.

Monte  was one of my Dad's friends that I didn't see all of the time on a daily or weekly basis but when he did come around everyone spoke "upbeat," "smiled a lot," "did a lot of hand shaking," and just in general spread good cheer.  He was my hero and apparently some of the adults around me felt the same way.   He was good at a game that he played in college, the same college my Dad went to. My Dad liked to tell people how Monte was doing when we were in town and the people always liked to listen and smile...................and he was my friend too.................he called me ,  "Foxie" every time he saw me and he liked to throw me up in the air and smile.  It could be raining outside and storming inside of my house, but when Monte came to town................it didn't matter, sunshine followed.  

Monte played this game and got to travel a lot.  My Dad always wanted to go see him play this game, but I don't think he ever got the chance to.  This game he played was called "Football" and Monte played in the NFL for the Buffalo Bills.  He started out playing college ball, then for the Houston Oilers and during the years I knew him,  The Buffalo Bills.  He played another year for Atlanta I read years later but by then the family had lost touch.   I did have a poster of my Hero , it was pretty big and it was even Autographed

To Foxie         Love Monte #43   (pretty sure that is the right spelling and number)

I don't know what happened to that poster, but I just ordered a copy of it to replace the one I had (not autographed tho) .......Ya never know what someone would treasure.

I treasured it and I treasured the feeling he left with us.  This nice looking, successful adult athlete somehow gave me a bit of self esteem that I was lacking elsewhere.......... he picked me to call "foxie!"   In reality........what I thought made me special was probably justa a name he used when he couldn't remember your name ............. just like another friend's Dad, Tom,  did........ he  called all of  us teen-aged girls, "George" and God only knows what he called  the guys.... in....... somehow it didn't quite have the same effect. :)

Some believe that those that are born in the same month around the same day carry similar personality traits.  If that is true, my family is in luck, as my Grandson shares his same birthday!


I am a Saints fan today but I bet when I was little I  bet I rooted on the "Buffalo Bills" with vigor.....even though I never had a "Poker Face" I was a sports fan at an early age.  I loved the sunshine it brought to town!  Every year around football season my mind wanders to a time when I was small enough to be thrown into the air and caught.......