My great Aunt Marion’s birthday was yesterday; she would have been 105! She passed away almost seven years ago and my dad reminded me of a funny story about her (it’s near the end of this post).
My dad’s mother died when he was 12 or 13, and his mom’s oldest sister (Aunt Marion) basically raised him. My grandfather remarried when my dad was in high school but Aunt Marion always had a very special place in my dad’s heart. She lived on her own until she was almost 95 years old. She’d never learned to drive but she was surrounded by a bajillion nieces and nephews and great nieces & nephews who loved to help her. She lived in a second floor apartment in Warren and after I moved nearby to work in Mt Clemens, Aunt Marion & I had weekly dates on Thursday nights. Sometimes we’d go to Baker’s Square for dinner, sometimes I’d get Kentucky Frie.d Chicken for us. Very rarely would we vary that routine.
She was really starting to have a hard time getting around; the laundry room was in the basement of her apartment building and she could no longer haul her clothes down & up the two flights of stairs. I had a washer & dryer in my apartment so I offered to do her laundry for her. She REFUSED and only after I assured it was really no problem did she give me a couple of washclothes to wash.
The next week I showed up with her clean washclothes and asked if she had any other wash I could help her with. I could tell she didn’t want to impose and she was very hesitant to give me any more laundry but that week she gathered up some more stuff for me to wash and return the next week. By the third week, when I asked if she had any laundry, she shuffled off to her room and came back with a garbage bag full of dirty clothes! And the next week? She had her dirty clothes in a bag sitting right by the door :-) She got used to having a laundry girl really fast.
She also got a HUGE kick out of riding around in my convertible with the top down. There is nothing like seeing your great aunt’s grey hair blowing in the wind as you drive down 12 Mile. I’ll never forget how she’d start to laugh and scrunch up her face and cover her mouth.
In December of 2000, my mom & I had plans to take Aunt Marion to see the Rockettes. When I arrived to pick up Aunt Marion, there was no answer. I started freaking out and found the building maintenance people’s phone number on a sign by the doors and they came over to let me in. Aunt Marion had fallen the night before and hurt her hip (maybe she broke it? I can’t remember) and spent the night on the floor of her apartment. She had to go spend some time in the hospital to heal from her fall and I remember going to visit her there and she complained about how horrible the food was and they wouldn’t give her any salt (because of her blood pressure or something?). Anyway, I went out to ask the nurses if she could have something to spice up her food, and the doctor was right there and said “She’s 95 years old…if she wants some salt, give her some salt!”
After her stint in the hospital, she lived with my dad for a bit. This is the story my dad remembered yesterday.
When Aunt Marion was living with us, she and I had gotten into routine of having a beer together each night. She only could "handle" six ounces at one time. So most often we would split a 12 oz can of Schlitz. One evening, I asked her if she was ready to get loaded, and she said yes, and I went downstairs to get a beer and a glass. Well, the phone rang or some other distraction came up and I totally forgot to return with the beer. She didn’t say anything that night, but the next night and the next night and the next night, etc. all I heard about was how I stood her up ONE TIME! That’s why I snuck the can of beer into her casket at the funeral.
Aunt Marion LOVED the Detroit Tigers and would tell us stories about how she & her sister would go to the games for a nickel back in the day. She worked for Michigan Bell and would tell us funny stories about the people who would call to be connected through the switchboard and she’d imitate their accents. She was the oldest of nine kids or something and she would always tell us the story about when she was younger and she’d play the doorbell game with her sisters. She’d push on their noses and say “ding-dong” a bunch of times and then when her sisters would want to push on Aunt Marion’s nose – she’d say she was done playing that game! So bratty. There are so many other memories I could share but we’ll save those for another time.
Happy 105th Birthday, Aunt Marion!
That’s sweet, but I was only 11. More sympathy that way.