Why My Great Aunts Never Married

"They're all gone now," Harvey said as we settled into his living room, plates of cold cuts, potato salad and pickles from a nearby deli in our laps.  Harvey was my mother's first cousin.  He was divorced and lived alone in this one bedroom apartment.  He lived closest to the cemetery, so it was natural that we should gather here.

"Aunt Pearl began declining as soon as Aunt Ruby went," his sister Dora added.  "The two of them spent their whole lives together.  Aunt Pearl just couldn't live without her."

Dora and her husband, Ralph, had driven in from out of state.  Dora and Harvey were twins, but I had trouble seeing the resemblance.  Harvey was dark with straight hair, where Dora was light with curly hair.  Harvey was thin as a bean pole; Dora was a little on the heavy side.  I hadn't seen Dora and Harvey much, even as a kid.  But in the past year and a half we had come together first at Aunt Ruby's funeral, then at my grandfather's, now this.

"Funny how we all thought that Aunt Pearl should feel resentful, being stuck with Ruby all these years,  but of course, she was all she ever had."

That was my Aunt Gayle.  She was my mother's younger sister.  Gayle was one of my favorites from that generation.  She was ten years younger than my mother and was almost like my cousin.

"Pearl would have made someone a good wife," my father said.

Conversation about the old maiden aunts always took on a ritual quality in our family.  Every time we saw them we always talked about how good natured and talented Aunt Pearl was and how whiny and miserable Aunt Ruby was.  My father would say that Pearl would have made someone a good wife, and we would all pause and consider the unfairness of life.  This would probably be the last such discussion of its kind.

Like my father, I could easily imagine Aunt Pearl married to someone as fun loving and easy to get along with as herself.  She would have someone to appreciate her many talents - her painting and her sewing.  She would have someone to travel with to far off places.  He would likely to earn more money than she did as the executive secretary to the President of the Bomar Corporation so between the two of them, they would have a pretty comfortable income.

Of course, if Aunt Pearl had married, she would probably have been home with children instead of working for the Bomar Corporation, and she might not have so much time for painting and traveling.  I could see her at her sewing machine making clothes for her kids, but I couldn't see her cooking and cleaning.  She hated to clean and claimed she couldn't make toast without burning it.  That was the only visible contribution that Aunt Ruby made to her life.  She stayed home and did the cooking and cleaning.  Aunt Pearl may never have had a husband, but in a sense, she had a wife.  Is it possible she preferred it that way?

"Aunt Pearl never complained,"  my mother said.  I nodded in agreement.  Even when she was in the nursing home, unable to get out of her wheelchair or use her left arm, she never sounded bitter.  Yet my mother, who was a nurse and knew such things, explained that her condition was really quite painful.

I pictured her earlier in her illness when she had still been mobile.  Her hair was white -- she had stopped coloring it blonde by then.  She was wearing a leopard print sweatshirt and orange slacks.  She always had odd taste.  But she was still cheerful.  She chuckled at the kid's antics and frowned sympathetically when the baby cried.  She would take them to the residents' kitchenette and serve them pudding and juice.

Aunt Ruby had not changed much in the course of her illness, either.  She had always been a complainer of numerous aches and pains.  When we were younger, my mother had described her as a hypochondriac.  I don't know how real or imagined these ailments were, but she always gave the impression of play-acting her suffering to elicit sympathy.  Consequently, even when she was undeniably dying, I still found myself reacting to her as if she were faking.

"Aunt Ruby lived in a dream world", my mother said, repeating an observation she had made many times.  Aunt Ruby used to say that her mother went to Paris to buy her clothes.  In reality, they were a poor immigrant family.  "She was like someone right out of a Tennessee Williams play," my father added on cue.

Aunt Ruby did not have much of a career history.  My mother said she had a few jobs when she was young but they never lasted long.  She was always telling the boss how to run his business.

As a small child I was afraid of Aunt Ruby.  "Where's a kiss for your old Auntie?" she would say, her mouth pouting, her eyes pleading, her smell of smoke and perfume, and her smudgy red lipstick leaving its mark on my face.  I thought I would smother in her large flabby body.

I don't remember Aunt Pearl ever touching me, but I do remember her showing me things from her travels: coins from Cuba, castanets from Mexico, seashells from Puerto Rico.  And her paintings hanging in her living room: mostly copies of famous ones at the museum.  And her little crocheted animals that she made and gave to me.  She gave the impression of having lived a life that was, if not fascinating, at least satisfying.

"They lived long lives,"  Gayle said.  Pearl, Ruby, and my father.

"The way they smoked," I said, "It was a wonder they lived as long as they did.  I used to hate visiting them."  I remembered those yearly visits to their apartment.  We would usually go on Yom Kippur because my parents were not religious enough to attend services, but to Jewish-identified to go to work.  "It's our way of atoning for our sins," I used to say when I was a teenager.  By then I had developed the family habit of using stock phrases in talking about the aunts.

Those visits.  Ruby and Pearl would always be delighted to see us.  Pearl would show us her collectibles; Ruby might ask us if she could have a piece of jewelry we were wearing - if we ever got tired of it.  If my sister and I ran around the apartment Ruby would tell us to save our energy for our old age.  Aunt Pearl might tell an amusing story about a time she was stuck in the middle of nowhere - East Overshoe, she would call it.  And Ruby would be sure to tell us how unlucky it was to be short, because if you were short, people thought you were fat; and you weren't fat - you were just short.

Before long, we were done with enacting the rituals associated with our getting together.  There was nothing left to do but watch the TV that was always on.  The show was never interesting, and time would pass slowly, slowly, as if I could hear a clock ticking second by second.  One of the aunts would light up another cigarette and I would try not to breathe.

"They did live a long time," Dora observed.  "All of them except for our father.  He died at 65 and he didn't even smoke."

I tried to look appropriately sympathetic.

"Let's take a look at these," my mother said, reaching for the photo albums that were among Pearl's few possessions in the nursing home.  She handed one to Dora and began browsing through the other.  We all moved in to look.

I vaguely remembered seeing these albums before.  As I looked at the early photos, I realized that they were of women in their 20s, younger than I was at the time.  Pearl looked pretty good. There she was in sunglasses, scarf  blowing in the wind, posing on a beach-side boardwalk.  She was holding her cigarette in a way I recognized: one arm folded in front, supporting the elbow of the other; cigarette between two fingers, angled away from her face.  There was another of Ruby on the same boardwalk, clutching an unbuttoned cardigan to her body, looking a little short, as the saying goes. 

"Weren't they the bright young things of their day," Gayle remarked.

"They were trying to be," Harvey chuckled.

"Oh, there's that one," I said, my lips curled in an expression of distaste.  Aunt Ruby had been in a theatrical production many years earlier.  She played a maid - in blackface, no less, and was terribly proud of herself.  Even Aunt Pearl seemed to think that it was a hoot.  The Civil Rights movement seemed to have past them both by.

My mother turned the page, and there loose between the pages, was an antique photo. 

"Look.  Here's the family portrait taken when they were children."

We all moved closer.

"Here's our father in the long pants and Uncle Irv in the short pants," she said.

"Look at those curls on Aunt Ruby," Dora added.  "She was a pretty little girl, but even then she was chubby."

Ruby, about eight years old, had fat, dark ringlets and a blank stare.  She looked like her mother.  Pearl, who was maybe five, had straight blonde hair and a twinkle in her eye.  She was holding hands with Ruby but she seemed to be glancing at Irving, who looked about 10.  Irv had a hand behind Pearl, but it wasn't clear if it was affection or mischief he had in mind.  My grandfather, Murray, stood alone, frowning.  He had curly hair too.  I could see that's where I got mine from.  Their mother, who was seated, had an austere, care worn look and was plump in a matronly way.  Their father was thin and tired looking.  He was to die a few years later.

I never knew my great grandparents and I had no significant memories of Uncle Irv, either.  My mother had said that Irv was a lot like Pearl - down to earth and fun-loving.  The two brothers may not have been very close.  My mother said they didn't see much of his family even though they lived nearby.  There was something about my grandmother disapproving of him for some snobbish reason.

My grandfather was as different from Pearl and Irv as Ruby had been.  He was humorless and impatient with his wife and children.  He was sharp with my grandmother and never showed any affection.  "She wasn't his intellectual equal," my father would often observe.  He seemed to think that was the reason they did not get along.

We often wondered whether there was ever any romance between them and what brought them together.  My mother never had any answers to these questions except to suggest that marrying into my grandmother's family was a step up for my grandfather.

Yet in spite of this grim picture, which I believe largely to be true, I remember him playing with us with tolerance and affection.  Gayle and I would play cowboys and he would allow himself to be cast as "Slippery Sam", the outlaw.

"Hand over that loot you stole from the bank," we would demand as we rode up on our horses.  He would fish into his pockets and give us each a quarter.

Had he always been so sour, or was it the Depression that did it to him?  No.  My mother had said that she used to hear him yelling at his clients over the phone when he was still working as a lawyer.  When the Depression hit, he went to work in the scrap metal business.

I stared at the picture and wondered what sort of family had produced such different children.  As the oldest, my grandfather had responsibilities.  He and his father used to roll cigars together in the basement to earn their living.  Later they had a little bakery and my grandfather used to make deliveries for it.  When his father died, his mother ran it, and he undoubtedly became the man in the family.  In spite of this, he must have kept his grades up.  He went to law school, nights.

Between school and work, my grandfather probably didn't have much time for fun.  His family seemed to have great expectations for him to make something of himself.  Did his mother confide in him and look for emotional support after his father died?  It's hard to imagine he could have offered her any.

Then, what kind of relationship did he have with his brother, who was only two years younger, but so different?  Did he resent the fact that Irving had fewer responsibilities, fewer expectations, and in fact, never became a professional?

And the sisters - Ruby and Pearl.  Something must be telling in the names their parents chose for them.  Did my great grandparents expect their daughters to shine like jewels?  Did they expect them to find husbands who would pamper and adore them, while they brought them into the upper middle class?  Aunt Ruby seemed to have a view of herself as being cheated of the world's attention, but not Aunt Pearl.

Was Aunt Ruby sickly even as a child?  Was Aunt Pearl protective of her older sister even then?  When Aunt Ruby came home from school crying because a teacher criticized her or a classmate snubbed her, did someone tell her, "Don't worry, she's just jealous because you are smarter, or more beautiful, or better mannered," or did she come to that conclusion by herself?

Aunt Pearl had at least one teacher who criticized her: a sewing teacher who said, "I hope you never have to make your living as a seamstress," because she wasn't following instructions.  But Aunt Pearl survived this insult to go on to become a clever sewer.  Aunt Ruby was not so gutsy.  Perhaps she wasn't as bright and her family felt they had to protect her.  Somehow she got the idea that she could extract more of life's rewards from the pity of others than from their admiration.

"I wonder why Pearl never got married," my father said, repeating his earlier theme.

"My mother always said that Ruby stood in her way," Gayle said.  "That any time someone took an interest in her, Ruby would disparage him and generally make herself obnoxious.  You'd think Pearl never would have forgiven her for that."

"Ï remember one time,"  my mother said.  I must have been eight years old and was spending the night at their apartment on Commonwealth Avenue."  She paused to gather her thoughts.  "We were in the middle of dinner when the phone rang.  Aunt Pearl answered it and told the caller, "I can't go out tonight because my niece is visiting.  But you can come over if you bring someone for my sister."  Then he must have asked how old her sister was because Aunt Pearl said, "She's younger than me."

"But Pearl's the youngest," I interrupted.

"Yes," my mother said.  "And  she didn't reveal any exact ages either.  So later that evening these two men came over.  Aunt Ruby pulled me aside and said, "I don't like the looks of those two.  They brought a bottle.  I don't like fellows who bring a bottle.  When Aunt Pearl tells you to go to bed, don't do it.  You stay up with me."

"Oh, for heavens sake," said Dora.

"So the four of them played cards for awhile," my mother continued.  "When Aunt Pearl told me to go to bed, I didn't.  I stayed up until the two men left.  Aunt Pearl was angry at me.  I was generally very well behaved.  'Why didn't you go to bed when I told you to?' she asked.  'Aunt Ruby told me to stay up,' I said.  I had no idea what was going on at the time."

No one spoke for a moment as we considered the implications of this story.

"You never told me that one before," I said.

"I had forgotten all about it until now," my mother said.  "Just sitting here talking and looking at the pictures.  I just remembered."