Aunt Alice. I am no doubt one of the youngest people in my extended family who can remember Aunt Alice in any detail. She passed away in 1970 or 1971, when I was 11 or 12. She was my generations great aunt, my mothers aunt and Grandma Emmas sister. My dad, uncles and aunts and such only spoke about her in whispering terms it seemed. She was the matriarch of the family at the time and were not shy when it came to laying down the law. There was also another side to her that they shunned. Aunt Alice desired my brothers and I, all 7 of us, to come to Memphis and spend the Xmas holidays with her; the year was 1969. Daddy didnt want to let us go. With indignation in his voice, I heard him tell my stepmother, Awh hell, that woman is a gambler. He relented however and gave us leave. It was a new experience in that it was the first time I had been to Memphis, even though I was 10 years old and the metropolis was only 30 miles away. Before then I had never been out of Crittenden County. During segregation black people just didnt travel a lot. It was too difficult, there being no facilities open to us. But anyway we got to Aunt Alices and, even though she might have been a gambler, I saw no horns on her and she turned out to be a very decent, loving person. I noticed she was a well connected person, having many friends. She said she had no money when we got there on the night before Xmas. Then she started opening the different Xmas cards people sent to her; many of them contained money. The pockets of an apron had money in it, the same for potholders. She ended up with $15. In buying power, that was probably equivalent to $200 now. Aunt Alice might have been a gambler, but she was also religious to the core. She held long prayers at meal time and was loud in church on Sundays. I can hear her now concerning my siblings and me, Lord keep them so close together until one cant fall for the other. Her expressions said she meant it with her whole heart. At the table she had a lot of dos and dont, such as, Never stick a fork in bread, baby, it represents the devil persecuting the saints. Everything went along fine until one supper we were eating some kind of meat that had small bones in it. We of course spit the bones back into the plate. The aunt told my brother who was washing the dishes not to throw the bones out, because she was going to put them in some soup. Oh no youre not, I said to myself. Everybody at the table gasped at the idea of eating soup seasoned with bones that had been in everybodys mouths.. The aunt was strict, but she was a genuine person. When she helped you she did it from the heart and she gave her best. She took us to Goldsmiths Department Store and bought us so many nice clothing, to include pants, shirts, hats, coats and gloves. We were dear to Aunt Alices heart because our mother, her niece, had passed away when we were so young. That is why she prayed and cried over us so fervently. At that time Mama had been dead about five years, but to me it seemed like a lifetime ago, given that I was only four when she went away. (To be continued...)
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 01:01:11 +0000
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