After Uncle Jerry's funeral, I started this entry. I put in this photo of Aunt Frieda but never got anything written. I think Aunt Frieda is lovely and looks exactly like an elderly grandmother (great grandmother and yes, even a great-great grandmother) should look like. When I quit working, I'm going to let my hair grow out and wear it up in a bun. Of course, it won't look as pretty as blonde Aunt Frieda's. Mine will be gray. If I'm really lucky, mine will turn silver like my mother's lovely hair.
Anyway, just this hour I learned that Aunt Frieda's husband, my funny Uncle Joe, died yesterday. Aunt Frieda and Uncle Joe were always my favorite aunt and uncle. Besides the fact that they were both nice, gentle and always had time to talk to a little one, they were sort of fairy tale characters in my life story.
I was the 8th of nine children and born in 1950. Whopping cough was a serious threat to little children, babies and elderly folks. There was no vacination and not much medicines to cure the disease or ease the symptoms. When I was born, my folks thought the older children had been exposed to whooping cough. They couldn't take me home from the hospital for fear that I might be exposed.
Uncle Joe and Aunt Frieda had two boys, probably 5 and 7 years so they got the job of taking home this week-old baby girl. I was always told this story and must have known that Aunt Frieda would have gladly kept and raised me . . . but of course, my parents went and reclaimed me after the threat of the whooping cough.
At Uncle Jerry's funeral, both Uncle Joe and Aunt Frieda knew and recognized their many neices and nephews . . . and I think Uncle Joe even threatened to chew on a few ears!
