Good Morning.
I find it interesting when someone in a family gets into a mess and his or her relatives either pretend it isn't happening or move mountains to make sure nobody knows about it. Not acknowledging a situation is dumb. Even if your next of kin robs a convenience store, it's still wise to disarm the snips at the dinner party by saying "Well I got out my favorite hat last night and I plan to wear it when I visit Clarence at the pen this weekend."
For some reason this leads me to a discussion of one of the most colorful women I've ever known. Her name was Mary Pauline but everyone called her Aunt Mame, long before the play and the movie about a similarly named and interesting woman. Even people who weren't related to Aunt Mame called her that, but I was related to her. She was my great aunt, and she would definitely wear her largest, fanciest hat to visit someone in jail. She loved hats and she loved people, including messy people.
Aunt Mame was married in 1899 at the age of sixteen, and her husband apparently had a problem with the drink. She divorced him two years later at a time when women did not extract themselves from even the worst marriages, especially when an identical twin sister was entering the convent. Aunt Mame not only went the legal route to terminate the marriage but got it annulled by petitioning directly to The Vatican, a process that took seven years. She never married again.
She decided to go to nursing school and upon graduation enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps. She was stationed all over the world, and during World War I she was the personal nurse to General John "Blackjack" Pershing. When she retired after twenty years, she had attained the rank of lieutenant, the highest possible for a woman at the time. She then took a position at a private hospital and worked the floors for several years until she was appointed head of the Tumor Clinic. The word cancer wasn't part of hospital signage.
Aunt Mame had a suite of rooms in my parents' home because people often took in their stray or aging relatives back then. She never got a driver's license, content to take the bus or a taxi when she wanted to go somewhere. She smoked unfiltered Chesterfields and had two Manhattans every night before dinner. Her preferred snack during the cocktail hour was cheese twists that turned her well-manicured fingertips orange, and she kept a box of English toffee hidden among the folds of her amply-sized lingerie on a shelf in her closet. She listened to the opera from The Met every Saturday afternoon and was one of the first people to purchase a television. She liked to go out for Sunday dinner and always treated her guests. She loved dogs, cats, and birds, let the parakeet out of his cage whenever she felt like it, and was absolutely delighted when the bird landed on my father's bald head. She dressed to the nines for the evening meal and always kept a lace handkerchief tucked in her sleeve, but she picked up her pork chop bone to get every last morsel.
She had friends of every race, creed, and color and was considered a bit mouthy about her opinions. She was registered as an Independent because she said it was her role to be loyal to the Commander-in-Chief regardless of party, but she hung a large poster of Eisenhower on the front porch during the 1952 and 1956 campaigns. Eventually she moved to a retirement home where she kept a bottle of sherry in her closet. When I was a sophomore in college, she called me in tears one night because, at the age of seventy-nine, she had fallen in love with a gentleman down the hall and he had died overnight of an apparent heart attack. I took the train home that weekend to be with her.
When she passed four years later, there was nothing to do but show up for the funeral. She had pre-arranged and pre-paid everything. She had the full military honors with Taps and the three-gun salute, and I still have the flag that was presented to me.
Aunt Mame was what we call a character and characters are fabulous. She was funny, kind, outspoken, mischievous, and imperfect, but she was fabulous.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
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