My daddy’s parents ended up with ten living children. Of those ten children, my daddy is the second from the youngest. I grew up hearing from them, usually in tones of awe, my Virginia family are the truly rowdy ones. I didn’t have much to base this on until I got into my early teens and it was decided my sister and I should go meet some of our Virginia relatives.
After meeting who would become a beloved great uncle of mine and his son, my cousin suggested we go visit my daddy’s Aunt Lilly in the nursing home.
Not having a lot of experience [then] with nursing homes, and having heard all about my crazy Aunt Lilly who was the center of much family lore, my sister and I were eager to meet her.
On the way, my sister reminded me not to drink the tea- our great Aunt Lilly had buried seven husbands.
Additionally, at one time in her life, my Aunt Lilly believed the Devil lived in her stove topped oven. My sister and I were naturally suspicious of anything brewed on the Devil’s stove. Granted the Devil inhabited- stove topped oven didn’t actually accompany her to the nursing home, we remained apprehensive all the same.
When we entered the nursing home, my dad and his uncle went straight to the office to check in. From across the room we heard someone bark out authoritatively, “Office is closed on Sundays. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
Turning, my uncle recognized the speaker immediately as his sister Lilly and went over to speak with her. After some discussion, it was decided we would head down the hall to her room and she would meet us there shortly. You see, my great Aunt Lilly had quite the lucrative business going; pushing the residents in wheelchairs at her nursing home around the joint- for a small fee, of course- and we had just caught her in the act of dropping off another one. Once she collected her .25 payment, Lilly was on her way to visit with us, her long-lost relatives.
That day I watched my great Aunt Lilly swindle $100 out of my daddy who does not cough up money easily- ever. How did she accomplish this feat?
She bet him she could sew a straight line in the dark. I won’t reveal what I saw go down that day, but the end result was my great Aunt Lilly pocketing a nice hundred while she snickered in her sleeve.
Many have asked over the years if I really believe she was crazy. I always answer, “Yes, my great Aunt Lilly was crazy like a fox.”
My current husband knows this story all too well but should I ever get married again, I’m totally going to out of the blue arbitrarily claim the Devil has taken over some random part of the house and so therefore I can no longer enter said area, obviously.
I’m thinking I don’t want to limit the Devil this time around — why put him in a box? I mean, if I were the Devil I wouldn’t be content with just inhabiting a stove topped oven. Oh no, that kitchen is going to be my new winter home and the laundry room my year round retreat.
Guess that lets me out of cooking for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
As to what really happened to all those husbands? I guess we’ll just never know.