The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
Columnist Sherryanne De La Boise
"Adventurous-Entertaining"
email: sherryanneQuill@yahoo.com
(her mother resides in Stronghurst)
Aunt Betty: My Inspiration
I'm in Stronghurst to bury my Great-Aunt Betty. Actually, I was never permitted to use the word, "Great," for she thought herself much too young to be an aunt, let alone a great-aunt. Mother's sisters were instructed to call her, "Betty," until she had a full contingent of six nieces and nephews, and "Aunt" could not be avoided. She was the true, beloved youngest child, having been born when her eldest sister was already off for a year at Monmouth College. She was the family's first hospital born baby, as her mother had had measles during the pregnancy. Imagine the terror of not knowing if your baby was going to be normal or even survive.
But, survive and thrive, she did. Betty had the fun of being a town girl in the roaring 20's, with her brothers and sister disappearing one by one to college. Only she and her brother John did not graduate Phi Beta Kappa (After one semester, John Brook came home with financial reports on all of his Ag professors, successfully arguing that there was no point in paying to study the lessons of those who did not flourish in the field in which they purportedly were experts).
Her cousin, Elmer Beckett, was going blind, but could line the hood ornament up to the newly painted roadway lines (I suspect Elmer was why Henderson County was first to have them in the State). Many funny stories about their adventures driving around with Howard Grigsby, Edith Brook and John Simonson. The summer after he got his drivers license, Elmer was like a fly tied to a string: round and round in a circle, trying to burn up all the gas in Saudi Arabia. And, Betty was in that car.
Elmer lived for a while in Beruit, where Betty visited. He became the C.E.O. of Goodwill and retired to Oregon. He showed me how the blind pour coffee and requested, no one move the chairs!
One year of teaching was enough for Betty. She hated it. She convinced her sister, Edith, to enlist with her in the Navy. Edith went to Italy, while Betty went to Washington to translate coded messages and deliver them to the appropriate person in the White House. Once, as she was taking a message to FDR, she was shoved in a closet, the door shut. The President was coming down the hall. No one was to see that he was unable to walk. The press, back then, focused on the work of the President. She only saw him seated, at his desk.
Betty loved the life of politics. But when WWII ended, she had no desire to run for office, be the dear wife of a legislator, nor be the party gal who ages out. Instead, she went to work for the penultimate of partiers, the State Department. She was asked to go to Paris, but realized that she would be just one of the secretaries. While, if she went to a distant posting, the embassy was smaller, meaning she would not only be the Secretary to the Ambassador, but included in the invitations to all of the social events.
It was very expensive to call from Venezuela or Turkey, involving a number of operators. Thus, she was limited to the Sunday-after-church call (for her, often in the middle of the night).
Telling about her adventures ended abruptly, the year the first great grandchild was born: From that point on, the conversations were the Sherryanne report: "Baby Sherryanne was here. She has just learned to sit up." Or, "Baby Sherryanne was here. She has her first tooth."
As Betty would tell it, "They were no longer interested in my doings. All they wanted to talk about was That Dratted Baby. Even John was besotted.' Last year, on her 100th birthday, her memory faded, when shown a family picture, she named everyone, including "there's That Dratted Baby!"
She always brought gifts from her travels. During the African years (Nigeria, Nairobi, Cameroon, and Kenya), she brought wooden carved heads. Each country had a different look, a different nose, a different forehead, a different lip line. Oh, did I get into trouble with Jesse Jackson for a paper that those heads inspired. Accused me of trying to dissipate the unity of the black vote.
After Betty retired, she and Mother undertook annual road trips, never following a straight line. They did 6,000+ miles one summer, just going from friend to relative to friend. Betty had encouraged Mother to get her MFA from the Art Institute. It was on these trips that Mother honed her photographic skills, eventually getting several magazine covers.
Betty was living in Sarasota, the year I was learning to play the bagpipes. "Thank Heavens Sherryanne quit that. When she was practicing, that infernal racket sounded like a mating call. Twenty ducks came pecking at the patio door." We have photographic proof.
One visit, Betty was anxious to show us the new Sarasota Art Museum, where she was a docent. Her friends warned her that my little children would be bored and run amuck. Not my well-disciplined troops: My darlings lined up, toes to the "you better not go closer" line, and pointed out the animals in every Rembrandt, every religious relic, every carving. She and her buddy, Bill, were the ones who got the art education that trip.
Betty would make an annual visit to Stronghurst, spending the month with Mother in the Brook home, visiting friends and the cousins: Nimricks, Simonsons, Peasleys, Forts, and Brokaws.
In later years, she would arrive heavily medicated with a walker. By month's end, less drugs and the walker abandoned to a corner. Stairs? By the end of the month, no problem. She became the basis of my book on terrible mistakes made with our elderly generation.
When her visit coincided with the annual parade, she rode the float with her SHS classmates. In her 90's, there was a barrel train. Well, she got into one of the barrels and rode for several hours, with regal parade waves for everyone. Perfect posture. Perfect hair.
Betty had a uniform. When she moved to a care facility, I put a schematic of said uniform at the top of her charts: pastel pants, a sleeve-less shell, coordinating unbuttoned jacket with knee high hose, polished open-toed sandals, white large round-bead necklace, and handbag (with comb, mirror, lipstick, handkerchief, and powder). Her hair was to be styled. She was to wear powder and lipstick. We've been nagging about the uniform during the daily Facetime calls.
The last year has been tough. She was living in violation of her desires, being on a feeding tube and sleeping 23 hours a day.
Yet, we would have brilliant moments where Betty would be alert. Euthanasia is illegal in Florida. But, who wants to be the one to withhold nutrition from a beloved family member? Her passing was a blessing, as she once pointed to folks in a dementia wing and told a cousin, "I don't want to live there.'
I am sorry to lose the last member of her generation. She may not have been a Phi Beta Kappa, but she was an inspiration for this one.