What Every Kid Needs

Aunt Belle was my Daddy's aunt..my Grandma's younger sister. Born in the late 1800's, she went to work in the mills when she was just a little girl. I doubt she ever went to school, because she never learned how to read or write. I was told she could "cipher", meaning she could count money, enough so to be sure she wasn't cheated at Johnny Russell's store. From my earliest remembrances, Aunt Belle was tall, slim, dark-skinned, with high cheek bones and short, curly, salt and pepper hair. Aunt Belle was married three times, but never had children of her own.

My grandmother, Daisy, was tall, plump, dark-skinned, hawk nosed, with coarse white hair, always worn in a bun. Since all my relatives came from Cherokee County, North Carolina, I always wondered and hoped there is Cherokee Indian blood in me. My oldest brother did an advanced DNA test which pretty much confirms I'm a plain ol' Scots-Irish white woman.

My grandmother was widowed when I was about four years old. My only memory of Grandpa was visiting his bedside shortly before he died. I had a new dress and he asked, "Who is this pretty little girl?" I've never known whether he was joking to make conversation, or he truly didn't know me. But according to my brothers, he wasn't a touchy-feely Grandpa. Most of the photographs of him, he wore a rather sullen expression. Living through the Great Depression as a one-legged man, when able-bodied men couldn't find work, might jade one toward life.    

After Grandpa died, Aunt Belle's third husband, George Knight, filled in as Grandpa for me. He had thin, white hair, blue-gray eyes, and wore little wire-rimmed glasses. To me, he seemed eternally old and pleasant...kind of like Santa Claus, only thinner. He wore denim overalls and probably dipped snuff. Just about all the old people of my southern childhood did. Uncle George wasn't blood-kin; but that didn't matter to me.  Kids will love you--if you give them attention.   

I sat on Uncle George's lap, got bouncing horsey rides, and peered at my reflection in his wire-rimmed glasses. He knew lots of verses to One-Two, Tie Your Shoe...way more than anyone else I've ever known. That seems important, somehow. He had a gold pocketwatch on a chain that he would take out and let me hold. I wonder what happened to that watch? It probably was sold or went to someone who could care less about the memories attached to it.

When we visited Grandma, we always went to visit Aunt Belle and Uncle George, too. They lived about a half mile apart, on different streets. Grandma got mad if we went to Aunt Belle's house first. How she found out, I don't know; but word traveled fast in the 'hood, and Aunt Belle's phone would be ringing!

Uncle George and Aunt Belle's house hugged the street, with a tall wire fence all around, large oak trees, and no grass to speak of. The ground was packed so hard, Aunt Belle probably swept it. There was a front porch for sitting in hot weather. There was no air conditioning in mill houses those days. The "front room" didn't have a sofa, only a few wooden rocking chairs, a coal or kerosene heater, and a big fluffy bed with squeaky wire springs. Uncle George ingeniously rigged a string from the one light bulb in the room's ceiling to the bedpost. That way you didn't have to stub your toe getting into bed; you could pull the string and turn off the light. 

Aunt Belle and Uncle George loved watching wrestling and cowboy shows on their little black and white TV set. During westerns, she would talk to the TV and say, "Better watch out! He's behind that rock!" She and Grandma never believed men walked on the moon; it was all a fake. What if they were right? 😄

At Christmas time, Aunt Belle and Uncle George had a cardboard box filled with fruit, nuts, and candy, but never a Christmas tree. At Easter, she dyed eggs, just like me. Her biscuits were the best ever..made with lard and big as softballs. On Sundays, she used two tablecloths, one for the table, the other to cover the food. Lunch stayed on the table all day for visitors to eat when they dropped by. I didn't die from food poisoning, and I ate plenty of deviled eggs, potato salad, and fried chicken that wasn't refrigerated all day.

Oh, the memories of a slower pace and tighter family connections. Every kid needs an Aunt Belle and Uncle George!

Copyright 2011 Charlotte Laney