Aunt Ader’s Place

Aunt Ader’s Place Part 8

Aunt Julie was from a very proper home, though generally untroubled by the high standards set by   her mother, Mrs. Townsend.  That austere lady always wore black dresses with white collars, stockings tied in a roll at her knees, and a severe black straw or felt hat, depending on the season.  Though Aunt Julie’s housekeeping was poor to nonexistent, on the occasions Mrs. Townsend was to visit, the house was immaculate.  

It was confusing on those rare times to come in and find the kitchen sparkling,  the toilets flushed and scrubbed, and bathroom floors free of piles of dirty laundry and unlittered with used sanitary napkins.  I never understood why no one flushed the turds since the toilets worked.  I had no idea what the soiled sanitary pads played till my cousin Sue explained her older sisters had a lot of nosebleeds.  At the rate the napkins multiplied, I was amazed never to have witnessed a nosebleed.

When Granny visited, the kids wore starched and ironed clothes instead of running around near naked in their step-ins as they normally did.aunt Julie and the kids were glad to see Granny go, but my uncle said he wished she lived there to keep Aunt Julieon her toes.  Aunt Jule had fourkids.  Three of them gre up to live in squalor, while Sue’s homemaking skills were impeccable.

Ader’s Place Part 6

Mettie was abandoned by her mother, Cynthia, as an infant, leaving her with her own mother.  Though divorce was almost unheard of at that time, Cynthia was twice-divorced. Her father went on to remarry and took no responsibility for her.  He only visited her once, when she was the widowed mother of seven. Late one night, Mawmaw told this tale of her early years, the only time I ever heard this.

“I jist turned nine years old, ‘bout the age you are now. Me and Ma had picked some beans in the cool a’the mornin’ an’ I was a’helpin’ ‘er git ‘em ready fer canning. Ma set down in her rocker to rest jist a minute an’ I was a’playin’ with my kitten. I was glad she was a’sleepin’ a while since I didn’ want’a mess with them beans no how. After a spell, I saw Ma’s head was kinda hung to one side an’ spit was a’runnin’ out’a her mouth kinda foamy. She wouldn’ wake up. I got up to run over to git Miz Jone’s an’ seen there was a fire between our place an’ hearn. There warn’t nothin’ to do but run through it the best I could. Them flames was a’lickin’ at my feet an’ I was jist a’cryin’. I got Miz Jones, but it ain’t made no difference. When they got over to see ‘bout Ma, she was dead. They sent for Uncle Jeb to git’er buried.

I had to go to Uncle Jeb’s, then. He was awful good to me, but Aunt Lottie was jist hard down. She whooped on me ever chancet she got, an’ they was plenty. She made shore I ain’t done no sittin’ aroun’. I married soon’s I could, jist to git outta her way.

I never really had no home after Ma died.  I knowed Aunt Lottie didn’t want me around ‘lessen they was work to be done.  She’d put me out to help a woman that was having a baby, help with the canning, or help with the sick.  I never seen no pay, just worked for my keep.  Sometimes my mama would get settled and send for me, but I had to stay out of the way of her man,  so back I’d go to Uncle Jep and Aunt Lottie, till she could put me off on somebody else.  It was hard times for sure.”

Aunt Ader’s Place Part 4

dog-trotScary stories are best when told by a true believer.  On a cold, dark night, the women and children clustered cozily around the fireplace at Aunt Ader’s old house while the men were out hunting.  By the firelight, mothers in straight back wooden chairs bumped rhythmically back and forth to lull their little ones off to sleep, as their older kids stretched out pallets in the front room enticed by oft-repeated family tales, some funny, some sad, some terrifying.

I recall this sad story as deliciously heartbreaking, though I never knew any of these distant relatives of relatives.  My Great-Aunt Jo told of her pregnant Cousin Lou on her daddy’s side from way over in Alabama.  Back before Aunt Jo was born, Cousin Lou left her baby Jessie Mae on a pallet under the shade of an oak while picking beans with her family nearby.  Lou looked back often to check her sleeping baby.  It was resting so well, she picked on a bit longer, hoping to get enough beans to can a few jars. Little Jessie never made a peep.
When Lou’s basket was filled, she came back to retrieve the baby and was horrified to find the shade had shifted and the baby burned beet-red in the sun.  Lou and her mother, Ruth, rushed to sponge the baby with cool spring water. For three days, Little Jessie lingered between life and death, before dying.  The family had to restrain poor grief-stricken Lou from pulling the baby from the coffin at the burial.  She gave birth to a seven-month baby a few days later that only lived a few hours.  Though she went home to live with her husband, all she did was pine for her lost babies.  She became catatonic, unable to eat, dress herself, or leave the chair where she rocked her dead child’s rag doll. 

A few months after her grieving young husband took her home to her mama, Ruth, it became obvious she was pregnant again.  It was hoped the new baby would bring her back to life though she never responded to the new baby Sally, just kept rocking Baby Jessie’s doll.  Ruth was left to raise little Sally and manage her sick daughter.  On good days, Lou was like a docile child, sitting quietly or doing simple tasks.  On rough days, she cried and rocked her rag doll.  On her worst days, she wailed and tried find her baby or throw herself in the well.  When she finally roused enough to try to hang herself, Ruth had to put her in the asylum where poor, deranged Lou managed to hang herself after a couple of months. Because she’d killed herself, she was hastily buried at the asylum and couldn’t have a Christian burial with her lost babies.  Afterwards, people swore they could hear Lou crying, trying to get to her babies’ graves in the church cemetery dark, moonless nights.  I still get tingles thinking of it.

spooky-halloween-scare-october-holiday-8

Aunt Ader’s Place Part 5

blackdog2

As the fire burned low, the lap babies had been put down and knee babies were sleeping quietly on pallets, the chatter from the older children slowed as they; too, drifted off to sleep at the feet of their mothers, aunts, and grandmother.  Desperate for ghost stories, I hung on the words of my superstitious Maw Maw. She held grandchildren spellbound with all the scary tales she knew.  Should she falter, one of my aunts urged her on…”Mama, remember about the big black dogs running through the house.” Her stories were more terrifying because she believed them with all her being.

“Oh yeah, lots of times, late at night, if the wind was still, and the night was dark, me and Granny could hear them ghost dogs, howling and scratching at the door, trying to get in…but once in a while, if the moon was full, we’d see them big, black devil dogs blowing right into the room where me and Granny was, made of black smoke from the fires of hell with blazing coals for eyes.  We hid under the covers, ‘cause Granny said ‘if you ever looked in them fiery eyes, you was bound for Hell’.”

Opportunities to hear scintillating stories like these were rare, usually limited to visits with Maw Maw, my paternal grandmother. Mother could hardly snatch her spellbound children from the writhing mass of cousins clustered around Maw Maw’s knees. Daddy ruled the roost, and he liked the stories as much as anyone.  Mother held the ridiculous notion that tender minds didn’t need to hear scary stories, more concerned about the nightmares she’d be dealing with in a few short hours than the extreme pleasure they afforded us at the time.

I do wish I could hear and savor those stories again, unmolested by that nagging voice in the background.  “There’s no such thing as ghosts.  Those stories are just pretend, like cartoons. Now, go on to sleep and forget about them.”

Maw Maw by CarMettie Swain Knight, a champion ghost storyteller

Aunt Ader’s Place Part 2

dog-trot

House much like Aunt Ader’s

Not understanding the nature of inebriation, I assumed Uncle Dunc, a great name for a drunk, was just playful when he laughed at all our jokes and fell off the high porch chasing us. No one bothered to explain for years that Dunc was a drunk. He was one of my mawmaw’s youngest siblings, younger than some of her own children.  Her mother, Cynthia, was a scandal, having been twice divorced before she married John Miller.  John only lasted long enough to father a daughter and twin boys in quick succession before dying of lead poisoning.  He was shot in a bar fight, likely saving him from the heartbreak of his fickle wife’s habit of spousal abandonment.  Presumably, his son Duncan was the bad apple that didn’t fall too far from either parental tree. 

Aunt Lucille’s demeanor didn’t match Uncle Dunc’s.  She was a dour, strait-laced woman not given to smiling, though it’s not likely she had much to smile about, considering her life with Dunc.  She looked a lot like Smokey the Bear in a dress. I have not seen a woman more hirsute before or since.  Her unibrow and mustache dominated her round face and coarse, black hair, resembling pubic hair covered her legs, though I had no knowledge of pubic hair at the time. After a visit there, Daddy always warned against us girls against shaving our legs or we’d end up with legs like Lucille.  I was far too young at the time to be aware of leg-shaving anyway, but I certainly didn’t want Smokey the Bear legs.

Most of the time when we visited Uncle Dunc’s place, many other aunts, uncles, and cousins were there. Huge dinners of fried fish, barbecue, or fried chicken were served up, the first shift to ravenous children who ate scattered about the floor or maybe on the porch. This was in the days before paper plates, so dishes were quickly washed before setting the second table for adults. By this time knee babies were nodding off in their father’s arms and younger babies put to the breast. After dark, a propane lantern hanging on the big front porch cast a cone of light where dozens of cousins chased each other hysterically in and out of the shadows. Parents visited in the cool of the front porch.  Mamas rocked babies and put them down to sleep on pallets just inside the house where they could be heard if they cried out. 

Sometimes times there would be home-made vanilla, peach, or banana ice-cream made in hand-cranked freezers.  The evening usually ended when exhausted kids were called in for ice-cream, but on the best nights, the old folks launched into deliciously terrifying ghost stories, made all the better because the teller believed them.

cousins

A few of my forty first cousins.

To be continued

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20 thoughts on “Aunt Ader’s Place Part 2”

  1. Pingback: Aunt Ader’s Place | Nutsrok – Br Andrew’s MusesEDIT
  2. patriciaruthsusanGreat memories, Linda. :) — SuzanneLikeREPLY EDIT
  3. Aunt BeulahAh, the fun of screeching around with cousins big and small as dusk falls and our parents talked and laughed on the porch or in the house. I’ll never forget it. And don’t you think everybody has an Uncle Dunc of one failing or another in their family tree? I know we did. Great post, one that opened me to many memories.Liked by youREPLYEDIT
  4. http://www.salpa58.wordpress.comOh Linda, this is hysterical. I can relate to most of it and I am sitting here laughing out loud. Your aunt with all the bear hair sounds like she might have had some Italian in her. Very hairy group, I can attest to that. On the bright side you don’t see too many bald Italians. :o)
    Loving this one and looking forward to reading more.Liked by youREPLYEDIT
  5. Let’s CUT the Crap!So nice to have family around you. :-D Forty cousins. Wow.
    Your stories are every entertaining.
    Woe is me. I come from a family of women once my dad passed away. Thank goodness one of my four sisters had a boy.Liked by youREPLYEDIT
  6. Annette Rochelle AbenHook me up with the ice cream… Crazy but my mom had an older brother named Duncan. He passed very young, in fact she never met him.Liked by youREPLYEDIT
  7. olganmAnother great image. And I like the sound of the ghost story telling…:)Liked by you and 1 other personREPLYEDIT
  8. Soul GiftsThe image of the hirsute Smokey the Bear is now stuck in my head !! Thank God I stopped shaving my legs :)Liked by you and 1 other personREPLYEDIT
  9. Judy MartinThis is great Linda. It must have been such fun for you at the time. I am so glad you have such a good memory and are sharing your stories of your colourful relatives with us! :-)Liked by you and 1 other personREPLYEDIT

Nutsrok Illustrations by Kathleen Swain

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Becky in the Drain
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Surprise party

Aunt Ader’s Place Part 9

A visit to Aunt Julie’s house was wild times.  There were no rules, except one.  She needed her afternoon nap, so we had to lie down from one to three till she was done.  I thought two hours of enforced bed time would kill me, but we spent the time wisely, playing semi-quietly, tussling with puppies, kittens, turtles, frogs, or  lizards,  giggling, and building forts.  Eventually we’d get around to jumping on the bed and she’d be forced to quiet us with an expletive, a reward in itself since I never got to hear cursing or filthy talk at home.

Aunt Julie’s kids were feral children, with no fashion concerns, styling about in their underwear, or step-ins, as Aunt Julie called them. I embraced this style and would have been a faithful follower, had Mother not shown up and stuck her big nose in my business.

“Don’t you EVER pull that stunt again. (EVER was spoken through clenched teeth for emphasis.). You KNOW better”

i always hated knowing better.  “But Aunt Julie….”  She cut me off.

“You heard me.  Get in the house and get some clothes on right now.”  The breeze on my flat chest was just a memory now.  Sadly, I went for clothes.  Mother was such a downer.

Aunt Ader’s Place Part 4

 

dog-trotScary stories are best when told by a believer.  On a cold, dark night, the women and children clustered cozily around the fireplace at Aunt Ader’s old house while the men were out hunting.  By the firelight, mothers in straight back wooden chairs bumped rhythmically back and forth to lull their little ones off to sleep, as their older kids stretched out pallets in the front room enticed by oft-repeated family tales, some funny, some sad, some terrifying.

I recall this sad story as deliciously heartbreaking, though I never knew any of these distant relatives of relatives.  My Great-Aunt Jo told of her pregnant Cousin Lou on her daddy’s side from way over in Alabama.  Back before Aunt Jo was born, Cousin Lou left her baby Jessie Mae on a pallet under the shade of an oak while picking beans with her family nearby.  Lou looked back often to check her sleeping baby.  It was resting so well, she picked on a bit longer, hoping to get enough beans to can a few jars. Little Jessie never made a peep.  When Lou’s basket was filled, she came back to retrieve the baby and was horrified to find the shade had shifted and the baby burned beet-red in the sun.  Lou and her mother, Ruth, rushed to sponge the baby with cool spring water. For three days, Little Jessie lingered between life and death, before dying.  The family had to restrain poor grief-stricken Lou from pulling the baby from the coffin at the burial.  She gave birth to a seven-month baby a few days later that only lived a few hours.  Though she went home to live with her husband, all she did was pine for her lost babies.  She became catatonic, unable to eat, dress herself, or leave the chair where she rocked her dead child’s rag doll.  A few months after her grieving young husband took her home to her mama, Ruth, it became obvious she was pregnant again.  It was hoped the new baby would bring her back to life though she never responded to the new baby Sally, just kept rocking Baby Jessie’s doll.  Ruth was left to raise little Sally and manage her sick daughter.  On good days, Lou was like a docile child, sitting quietly or doing simple tasks.  On rough days, she cried and rocked her rag doll.  On her worst days, she wailed and tried find her baby or throw herself in the well.  When she finally roused enough to try to hang herself, Ruth had to put her in the asylum where poor, deranged Lou managed to hang herself after a couple of months. Because she’d killed herself, she was hastily buried at the asylum and couldn’t have a Christian burial with her lost babies.  Afterwards, people swore they could hear Lou crying, trying to get to her babies’ graves in the church cemetery dark, moonless nights.  I still get tingles thinking of it.

spooky-halloween-scare-october-holiday-8

Aunt Ader’s Place Part 3

warhome2Uncle Dunc and Aunt Lucille had a houseful of kids.  Sometimes we were lucky enough that Bert, the eldest would drop in our games, raising our rough play to fever pitch.  Naturally, he tired of us soon, leaving us deflated when he went about the business.  I was always leery of the two big girls, since they seemed smart-aleck.  Ava, the oldest, was pretty with a bouncy, blonde ponytail.  Though I overheard Mother whispering she was trashy for mowing in her swimsuit out by the road, I thought it made perfect sense and worked well for her since she married a guy with a greasy ducktail and had a baby before her seventeenth birthday.  I kept a watch on both girls to see if they sprouted leg hair like Aunt Lucille.

swimsuitI believe Ava saw herself like this.

Prudy, the next girl was skinny with a lot of pimples and wore those pointy bras common to the late fifties and early sixties.  Her swimsuit kind of wrinkled over her skinny behind so she didn’t mow out by the street.  In fact, she worked as a carhop down at the drive-in for a while after dropping out of high school before hooking Toxie, who worked at the filling station and always smelled like oil.  Red rags always hung out of his back pocket.  I never had any contact with Toxie except when he yelled at me from under the hood of an old car suspended from a tree branch in Uncle Dunc’s front yard when I hit a ball into it.  I never really liked him much after that.

Carolyn was just a couple of years ahead of me, but must have been easier to control than her big sisters.  Her long hair, parted down the middle was braided so tightly it pulled her eyes back and hung in tight, thin braids almost to her waist.  The other girls must have rebelled against their mother in their dress and behavior, but at ten or so, mousy little Carolyn suffered under Aunt Lucille’s bossiness, since she only wore dresses and had to attend fundamentalist church services along with her mother and younger twin brothers.  They were wild little boys a couple of years younger than I, still peed their pants a good bit, and didn’t seem worried by Aunt Lucille at all.  Carolyn said she wouldn’t be allowed to have boyfriends, drop out of school, or cut her hair till she was sixteen.  I was only six or seven at the time, but that seemed very unfair to me.

I made a point to stay out of Aunt Lucille’s way since she yelled at kids a lot and was fond of using a switch on Carolyn and the little boys when she could catch them.  I certainly never asked to spend the night like I did at Cousin Sue’s and Cousin Cathy’s house.  We only visited Uncle Dunc for a year or so, until he moved off Aunt Ader’s Place, which incidentally was very near Daddy’s favorite brother.  I heard later he gave up drinking after a car-wreck left him paralyzed and he had no one to depend on but Aunt Lucille.

Aunt Ader’s Place Part 2

dog-trotHouse much like Aunt Ader’s

Not understanding the nature of inebriation, I assumed Uncle Dunc, a great name for a drunk, was just playful when he laughed at all our jokes and fell off the high porch chasing us. No one bothered to explain for years that Dunc was a drunk. He was one of my mawmaw’s youngest siblings, younger than some of her own children.  Her mother, Cynthia, was a scandal, having been twice divorced before she married John Miller.  John only lasted long enough to father a daughter and twin boys in quick succession before dying of lead poisoning.  He was shot in a bar fight, he was saved the heartbreak of his fickle wife’s abandonment.  Presumably, his son Duncan was the bad apple that didn’t fall too far from either parental tree. 

Aunt Lucille demeanor didn’t match Uncle Dunc’s.  She was a dour, strait-laced woman not given to smiling, though it’s not likely she had much to smile about, considering her life with Dunc.  She looked a lot like Smokey the Bear in a dress. I have never seen a woman more hirsute before or since.  Her unibrow and mustache dominated her round face and coarse, black hair, resembling pubic hair covered her legs, though I had no knowledge of such a thing at the time. After a visit there, Daddy always warned against us girls against shaving our legs or we’d end up with legs like Lucille.  I was far too young at the time to be aware of leg-shaving anyway, but I certainly didn’t want Smokey the Bear legs like that.

Most of the time when we visited Uncle Dunc’s place, many other Aunts, Uncles, and cousins were there.  After dark, a propane lantern hanging on the big front porch cast a cone of light and dozens of cousins chased each other hysterically in and out of the shadows while parents visited in the cool of the front porch.  Mamas rocked babies and put them down to sleep on pallets just inside the house where they could be heard if they squeaked.  Sometimes there would be home-made vanilla, peach, or banana ice-cream made in hand-cranked freezers.  The evening usually ended when exhausted kids were called in for ice-cream, but on the best nights, the old folks launched into deliciously terrifying ghost stories, made all the better because the teller believed them.

cousinsA few of my forty first cousins.

To be continued