I'll never forget Aunti VI

Remembering Auntie VI


As I get older I notice so many changes that are part of the new world.  Example, names we give our children today are different in many ways, where did the old names go?  Remember Dorothy, Edward, Frank, John and so many others I could fill a page with old names we don’t here today.  When I was young, girls were quite often named after flowers.  My favorite aunt’s name was Violet and let’s not forgets Aunt Daisy. We must not forget Cousin Lillie and our neighbor Rose.  Classmates were Ester, Dahlia and remember Tulip.  Yes I really had a classmate named Tulip and the one I had a crush on was Gardenia.

My dad’s family was Irish and his sister was Violet, one of my favorite people that made a big mark on my life.  When I was in kindergarten our teacher would have all the class skip around the room each day and there was only one little guy that could not get the hang of skipping. Seems I always had two left feet and they got mixed up when I tried to skip.  One Friday my teacher told me if I learned to skip over the weekend she would give me a penny.  Saturday morning found me on the sidewalk in front of our house trying to skip. Along comes my buddy Aunt Violet wanting to know what I was doing. I explained my chance to get rich over the weekend if only I could learn to skip.  For the next several hours’ Aunt VI and I skipped all over the neighborhood and I finally learned how to do it.  Monday the teacher asked me if I could skip and I jumped up from my desk and skipped all around the room twice.  My classmates laughed and applauded.  Next day I showed aunt VI my penny.

To our family she was just plain VI and she was always there when you needed someone.
My uncle found an old two-wheeler bike and gave it to me but once again I just couldn’t get the hang of it.  Along comes good old VI and for the next couple hours she chasses me up and down the street and I finally learned to ride a two-wheeler bike. I remember VI had to sit on our front porch to rest.  Several neighbors were out to watch all the excitement and cheer me on. 

It was the depression time and everyone tried to find ways to make money and aunt VI was always coming up with some wild scheme to make a buck.  At that time VI lived on the second floor of a three family flat and the family that lived on the first floor had a daughter Mary that had a wonderful singing voice.  VI came up with a great idea to make extra money.  Each evening she would get Mary; she was about six years old and had her dressed up in a nice Irish costume.  Then she would come and get me, all dressed up with a beret on my head and off we would go to visit local Irish taverns.  VI always talked the bartender into letting us supply some free entertainment.  So Mary would sing Irish tunes and when she was finished I would pass my little hat around for donations.  After we picked all we could from the patrons we would move on to another pub.  Everyone was poor back then but somehow there was always some extra change for a couple of bears.  We would visit several taverns each night and when the evening was over VI would divide the money up and we always made a dollar or two for an evenings work.  I’ll never forget at one pub a man asked me if I could dance and I said yes.  He reached into his pocket and out came a handful of change.” Show me an Irish jig and I’ll give you all this change, “he said.  Well I had no idea what an Irish jig was but I started to stomp my feet and dance around for about a minute and then I held out my hand and he gave me the change. VI said I could keep it all to myself but when I got home that night I gave my mom my hand full of change, all seventeen cents.  That was the first time I ever got paid for doing a job. Later in life when I was ten years old I got my first job working in a grocery store twenty-eight hours a week and was paid the large sum of $1.50.

Aunt VI always lived at home to take care of her widowed mom and stayed there until her mom passed away, then she moved into a small third floor apartment.  When World War 2 started VI got a job in a defense plant making aircraft engines. She was always good at what ever she did and when a big shot senator from Washington visited the factory he had to stop at VI’s workstation to meet her. After the war she went to school and became a registered nurse.  For the rest of her life she lived alone and was always able to find work nursing.  Vi rests in Laurel Grove Cemetery now but when I sit back and rest my eyes I can still hear her good old Irish laugh.  She spends her time now up with grandma and I’ll bet she has found another little boy to teach how to skip or ride a bicycle.