Alice

     Every family has at least one colorful character, whence come legendary family stories. Aunt Alice is still one of my family's favorite sources of anecdotes that start with, “And remember how she...”. Her view of the world was just enough askew that it brought the everyday-ness of daily life into sharper focus for the rest of us. But, who knows? Maybe Alice was the one most tightly tethered to reality and we were the ones who were slightly off balance.

      Alice was my father's aunt, sister to his mother, Maude, who died when he was just five. He and his brother were raised by Maude and Alice's parents. Their father, a printing press operator, was in and out of their lives during their formative years.

      Alice was a little “slow,” perhaps due in part to the fact she was somewhat deaf. Both traits made her all the more endearing and memorable.

Meant for Each Other

      Her courtship with Sam was a truly amazing story. Alice and my Dad's family lived in the small Colorado town of Wray. During World War I, as trains passed through carrying soldiers off to war, the young ladies of the town would take sandwiches and baked goods to the railway station and hand them up to the young soldiers, along with slips of paper with their names and addresses so the boys could write to them. Alice tagged along with her sisters to the station one day and fate put her sandwich and slip of paper in Sam's hands. They exchanged letters over the next couple of years.

      When Sam got home from the service, he was determined to marry Alice. He had no car so he walked from his home in Ovid to her house, about 62 miles “as the crow flies” and about 77 on today's highways through the rolling hills of the windy Great Plains. I suspect he cut across some fields so it was somewhere in between those distances. In any case, it was a very long walk. Alice had no idea he was coming until she saw him walking up their dusty road. No one today knows how they got back to Ovid. They must have borrowed or hired a wagon to take Alice and her possessions back with him.
Fifty Years Later and Over Half a Century Ago

      I first remember visiting Sam and Alice when I was in grade school. They lived about 10 miles from us and my father had promised his grandparents he would look after Alice. She and Sam lived in a small, tidy house on the main street, which was also the state highway. Back then highways went right through towns. The main employer in Ovid was the Great Western sugar beet factory, fed by farmers through out the region. All other businesses served farmers, the beet factory workers and their families.

      Sam was the janitor for the school and by then he owned a pick-up truck. When it snowed or the streets were icy, Sam would have Alice ride in the back of the truck as ballast. Alice was shortish and while not obese by today's standards, she was “roly poly.” She always wore flower-print house dresses, thick support hose, black “sensible shoes” and had a scarf tied tightly on her head when it was cold out. Because of the toll her size took on her knees, and the fact she was slightly bow-legged, she waddled as she walked, slowly listing from side to side.

      Alice was not offended when Sam asked her to act as ballast. She was glad to help. In fact, after Sam died and she flew for the first (and only) time to California to visit a sister, when the plane banked in a turn, Alice asked the stewardess if she'd like her to move to the other side of the plane to balance the weight. She was totally earnest in her offer and I suspect that stewardess (what Alice confusedly called a “seamstress”) never forgot Alice.

      Sam was big too, and rather quiet. He wore overalls all the time, as I remember. Their house seemed dark, but cool on a summer day. One entered through the mud room/ pantry where Alice had a wringer/washer where you hand-fed clothes into the wringer to get as much water out before hanging the clothes out to dry – outdoors in dry weather, indoors when necessary.

     In the kitchen, was a large, deep sink with a single spigot with just cold water. There were canning jars filled with produce from the garden at the side of the house. That suggested a certain genius and skill to me since I didn't know anyone who canned, other than the chokecherry jelly or strawberry preserves my grandmother “put up.”

      As a child, I didn't see Sam and Alice's world as better or poorer than ours, just different - and intriguing.

      Sam and Alice's life was pretty much contained in their house and little town. A big trip for them was driving the pick-up to Sidney, Nebraska, about 45 miles away. If she sent Christmas cards, it was surely mentioned as a highlight.

      I don't know what education level Alice reached but she was self-sufficient and independent. When Sam died and one of his relatives tried to trick her into signing a letter giving them the rights to Sam's pension and property, Alice knew not to sign it. Instead, with my father's encouragement, she used the money to fix up her house and buy some new furniture. My Mom was impressed with Alice's taste.

      After a few years, though, it was apparent Alice shouldn't live by herself any longer. My parents moved her in to the nursing home in our town. Alice was not one for mixing with others by then so she had a room to herself and would go just so far into the dining room for meals and always sat by herself. The staff knew to set her place close to the door and not insist she participate in activities. She always welcomed family and friends who visited, though, and loved it when they took her out for lunch or a ride.

      My family visited her regularly and she would often ask my Mom to bring her two hamburgers from the local cafe. Eventually, Mom discovered that Alice ate one of them immediately, then would stash the other in her dresser drawer to eat the next day. Amazingly, she didn't get sick.

      I remember Alice as neither cold nor affectionate, but she always seemed to have a smile in her voice and would often chuckle at her own stories, saying, “Oh, what a circus!”

      Like Lawrence (see One of a Kind Neighbor), her interpretation of certain words seemed childlike, but could well have been because of her difficulty in hearing. For example, as mentioned, she called stewardesses seamstresses, and would say “blood pleasure” instead of blood pressure. When my family lived in Phoenix, she called it Felix.

     I always thought Alice and Lawrence would have made a good pair. They would probably have enjoyed each others company, but they'd probably have argued some too. Each was quite independent and single-minded, after all. I can almost imagine being one of Lawrence's parakeets above the kitchen table as they visited while they ate their dinner. It would have been a loud conversation. "What a circus!" as Alice would say.