Jane Winter Leddy's account of her Aunt Margaret

AUNT MARGARET

"You don't lose nothing good you ever had as long

as you can do your rememberen." A quotation from Family

History finished by Aunt Margaret in l950.



Aunt Margaret was a part of my life from almost the

beginning of my memories, but not a big part at first.

We came to appreciate each other slowly. During those

early years when I spent many happy days visiting on the farm I adored my Grandpa and Grandma Winter and Uncle

Bill most. Each had a special place in my awareness.

I realize now how much I took Aunt Margaret for granted,

and why and how that has changed.

When I was very small it was Grandma who combed my

hair and let me comb hers, put me on the potty chair and

later took me on companionable trips to the two-seated

outhouse, played "let's pretend games in the old wheeless

cars behind the chicken houses, and tucked me into her

own bed when bedtime came.

It was Uncle Bill who teased me about the bear waiting

for me on the steep dark spiral stairway going upstairs,

and rumpled my curls when he called me Parley Voo, and

tried to teach me to double whistle. It was Grandpa who

built a special enclosure for my pet frog, whittled tops

from wooden spools, tiny baskets from peach pits, as well

as many willow whistles. Each one in their own special

way knew how to play with me.

Aunt Margaret was in her thirties by then,unaccustomed to dealing with small children, and for the first

time replaced by another as the youngest in the family.

I knew she liked me, but there were problems. She gave me an

inkling one day as we sat reminiscing over coffee. She

told me of the time she received a celluloid kewpie doll

for Christmas, and how I was such a brat, and wanted to

play with it, and how certain she was that I would break

it, or get it too close to the fire and it would melt

away.

My first meaningful connecting with Aunt Margaret

took place because I was often sent upstairs to nap in

her bedroom. It was the only pretty bedroom in the house,

light and airy, the window facing south across the slope

of lawn and road to the woods. Lacy curtains swayed in

the afternoon breeze. I remember laying there studying

the flowered wallpaper, and then the two rain stains on

the ceiling, after that the bits of dust floating in the

golden light, and when very near sleep the little particles

we chase with our eyes hither and yon.

Sometimes I defeated sleepiness and explored the items

on top of her bureau. I sampled the dusting powder and the

cologne, and marveled at the china jar full of hair, all novelties to me. My mother used face cream at night and

face powder when she dressed up, but no cologne, and no

decorated jar on her dresser dedicated to saving hair

from her comb.

Were there any pictures? I don't remember, perhaps of her three brothers. Well yes, there was one of Grandpa and

Grandma, the one I still have of them standing together

all dressed up in their Sunday best. There were no

pictures of boy friends. I watched her flirt in a big sisterly sort of way with the hired men who came and went,

but I overheard no talk of anyone special.

In the top drawer there were tiny round boxes of rouge

and hair pins, nets and necklaces, a neat pile of em-

broidered handkerchiefs, a package of Camel cigarettes

which was almost as thought provoking as the hair. I never

saw her smoking. Did Grandmother know? Somehow I realized

that this was a very secret and daring item and I spoke

of it to no one.

Aunt Margaret's clothes hung behind the bureau mirror.

There were two or three house dresses, two good dresses,

one for summer and one for winter. None of the bedrooms

in that old Victorian farm house had closets.

As I grew older there were more interactions and

sparks flew on occasion. Once I became angry with her and called her an "old maid' to her face, no doubt echoing my father who didn't guard his tongue as carefully as my mother

did when I was present. Another time I was homesick at the

end of the day, and cuddled up, and she shoved me away

brusqely, probably because I was hot, sticky and dirty,

and because cuddling was not her way. I was a tough little

one, but it brought tears,and I still remember Grandma

gently remonstrating and her quick reply. "Her parents

don't baby her. Why should I?"

I don't remember picking her prize dahlia and

presenting it to her as a gift, but she reminded me

laughingly of it often in later years. I think by then I was partially forgiven, but it was a good story used to

illustrate how far back we went.

The summer I was ten I went to Camp Hantesa, a Camp

Fire Girls camp, for the first time, and among other things

experienced the sociability and the joy of group singing

morning, noon, and night, at flag, at meals, at morning sing

at the evening camp fire. When I went to the farm later that summer for my annual week long visit I was still so

full of this joy of singing that I wanted the entire house-

hold to join me in song at meals. It would be just like camp

I told them, but they quickly vetoed that idea. My most fav-

orite new song was MacNamara's Band. Lacking group support I chose to sing it solo over and over again. The others in

their wisdom tried to ignore me, but Aunt Margaret,obviously

at her wit's end, finally bribed me five cents for each day

I could refrain from singing it, with one exception: she

couldn't resist inviting me to perform at her Thursday Smile

Awhile club, all of the verses "...the drums go bang, the

cymbals clang, the horns they blaze away..."



In spite of many similiar happenings, when I look back

I realize how close we came to being soul mates. Grandma

grew older and Aunt Margaret found more and more time to

roam the country side with me. We explored the gullies and

creek beds on the farm and beyond and collected rocks for

her rock garden, not really a garden, but a bank by the west

side of the house with a great variety of rocks: pink, red

black, spotted, striped, some full of holes, some like black

glass.

There was always a problem. Each rock picked up to

admire and keep seemed more unique than the ones we had

chosen earlier. Which ones must we leave behind? Was the

peanut cluster more intriguing than the white quartz? Which one was heavier? Did she already have a better piece of quartz at home? We couldn't carry them all. Hard decisions

to make.

When I reached college I was drawn to a geology class

by those first adventures with rocks, and from that class

acquired a life long interest in landscape forms. It fas-

cinated me that our wonderful treasures all tumbled to-

gether in the creek beds and gullies at Winterbourne were

gathered by ancient glaciers from land far to the north,

carried to Southern Iowa and deposited when the glacieral

force petered out and the forward ice began to melt. Gifts

arrive in strange and various ways from the past.

I began to learn other things from Aunt Margaret.

"Aunt Margaret, I'm hungry."

"Oh come on Jane Ann, let's go just round this bend. I

wonder how far we can see from the top of the hill. Maybe

we can see the house and barn. If we go on beyond those trees we'll find enough gooseberries for Grandma to make us a pie,just a little bit farther and we'll come to South River. Won't it be fun to tell them that we went as far as

South River? If we crawl through this fence we may find the

wahoo bushes." I still dream of finding the wahoo bushes

and going on into the "beyond".

One day Tuffy, the collie, spooked a ground hog, caught him by the nap of the neck and shook him to death. Another

day while wading in the creek I tried to catch a big some-thing that was moving through the muddy water. "Watch out

Jane Ann, what if it's a snapping turtle?" I gave up on him.

Next we spied some tiny fish. How to carry them home safely?

"Why don't you fill your shoes with water?" This solution

worked perfectly, but after awhile I began to wonder if the

poor little things could be happy and healthy in a small

glass bowl. In the end we put them back into the creek.

Aunt Margaret always had pets, wild pets, as well as

cats, dogs, and chickens. She gave me my first kitten, and

helped me mourn the first loss of a dog. Huck was an air-

dale who suffered pulmonary problems brought on or agravated

by the clouds of Kansas and Nebraska dust blowing across

Iowa during the dust bowl years. He belonged originally to

a farm manager, a friend of my dad's. The farm's owner be-

came disturbed by the dog's hacking cough and gave the order

to have him put to sleep. My dad's friend, Charlie, was

heartbroken, and my veterinarian dad felt it was a shame to

destroy an animal who, with proper attention and a change

of weather, might have a long and happy future, so we

adopted him. Huck was affectionate and adaptable and got

along well with our collie, Bruce. He bonded with me in-

stantly, and like the lamb in the nursery rime, followed

me to school one day. For awhile the air cleared, medicine

soothed his throat, and it seemed that he might recover,

but the skies turned yellow and gritty again, and one Sun-

day morning we woke up to find that Huck had stopped breath-

ing. I wept. It was so unfair. My Mother and Father tried

to comfort me. I stopped crying finally, but refused to be

comforted and withdrew into morose silence. Plans for a trip

to Winterbourne had already been made, so we went.

After dinner,a noon meal in those days, Aunt Margaret

suggested that the two of us take Tuffy for a walk in the

woods. We walked for miles. We picked wild flowers. There

was very little talk. Whatever there was, it was enough.

Not long before Aunt Margaret died I sent her a little book about a wild pet named Robert and this is her response:

"Janie Dear, You are such a honey to write to me and send me that adorable little book. If I were not such a complete nut over pets I couldn't swallow all the things "Robert" did but having dealt in them all my life, I think I know most anything is possible and I remember many years ago of being down east of the windmill in what we called the walnut woods and finding a squirrel nest on the ground with three baby squirrels in it. Something had evidentially happened to their mother. So----I gathered them up and took them home. Two of them did not survive the first night , but one lived. He was adorable. I called him Pinky Poo and he had a nest in a glass churn on top of the kitchen cabinet. Of course as he got older he became somewhat of a problem and would try to gnaw his way wherever he wanted to go. It was late in the fall when I found him so I kept him in the house all winter. Grandpa was not keen about having him have the run of the house, but he was cute, and I couldn't turn him out in the middle of the winter. When spring came I opened the kitchen window onto the porch and he went out. I think he would have come back but Grandpa found the window open and that ended that. Of course I have had pet chickens. Do you remember the hen who layed an egg behind the dining room door? Dogs and cats galore plus two parakeets--always a heart break to part with them which of course is inevitable......"

Gift giving and receiving was not a big thing with the extended family, except for Uncle Mac and Aunt Martha, who showered us all with many thoughtfully chosen items. Home grown or handmade gifts were the norm. The year I was ten I wanted a bicycle more than anything else. I asked my parents for a bicycle. I saved money for a bicycle. I wished for one on every chicken wish-bone. I dreamed about getting a bicycle, an then, alas, having it turn into a broomstick when I rode it around the dining table. I neither expected nor received many gifts from Aunt Margaret, and I knew she couldn't afford something as expensive as a bike. Much to my surprise, however, she started hinting about the wonderful birthday present that she had already gotten for me. She was so excited about this present that she found it hard to wait until the proper time for presenting it. "Oh, Jane Ann, you'll love it so much!" Time went by and I convinced myself

that she was the one who would finally satisfy my heart's desire. I couldn't begin to imagine anything but a bike.

When the moment arrived and she placed the small package in my hand I realized how foolish I had been to have allowed my expectations to get out of control. I tried to hide my disappointment. I tore away the wrapping slowly. What was this?! I was wide awake and the bicycle was turning into a Baby Brownie camera instead of the broomstick of my dreams.

Of course Aunt Margaret thought the camera was an inspired choice. I agree with her now, and am grateful. I remember examining her box camera and her other camera with accordion-like extension, and taking pretend pictures with both. She knew she was introducing me to a life long pleasurable activity. I started right out taking pictures of family and friends and pets and plants and travel scenes,and I still do. Not too long after that my mother convinced my father that I really did need a bicycle.



My understanding of and affection for Aunt Margaret matured as we both grew older. My mother and father separated and divorced. My father married Helene. Grandpa, Grandma and Uncle Bill died and were buried in Old Field Cemetery near the farm. I moved to California, married Jack, and started having a family, Tom, Bill, Robin and John. Aunt Margaret was living in a small white house on the western edge of Truro.

She moved from the farm under duress not long after her brother Bill died. My Dad and Uncle Mac decided for her that she shouldn't be living alone out in the country. We all thought she would hate leaving Winterbourne, and she probably did for awhile.

At first my Dad rented a place for her. In a year or so, when the house across the street, one of the oldest houses in Truro, went on the market, he bought it. He got it for a song, $900 I think. There was one bedroom downstairs and two upstairs, an indoor bathroom, a front lawn and a backyard garden patch. Open fields and woods beckoned from beyond the back fence.

The main part of town, the grocery store, the post office, the library, were only two blocks away, the churches not much farther. Many old friends lived within walking distance.

Trips from California were few and far between. We were busy raising the children and making a living. The Norwalk house was no longer "home". When we did come we always managed a day or two with Aunt Margaret in Truro, and the homey ambiance of her house welcomed us with open arms.

Although Aunt Margaret possessed many material hungers she never thought she could afford or needed new furnishings. She seemed quite content with the old familiar things: Grandma's secretary, the family dining table, an over stuffed sofa, wooden rocking chairs, what-nots, pictures and dishes, rag rugs and handmade quilts, all of which had moved with her from Winterbourne. I loved visiting her. I could relax there soothed by the scent of the past, sinking into the luxury of feeling at home with my roots.



Recently I began to think of how different our lives were, how thankful I was that her lot had not been my lot, but also how thankful I am to have had an Aunt Margaret. Now she is long gone, and I am moved to rexplore our relationship, and to pass my impressions along as she passed on so much family lore and affection to me, my cousins and our children.

My Grandmother, my Dad, my Uncle Mac and Aunt Margaret were the letter writers in my family. Weekly letters went back and forth between my Grandmother and the two sons who moved away from the farm. In addition she kept a network of family connections from California to upper New York State alive. When Grandma died, Aunt Margaret carried on. She and my father seldom missed their weekly exchange. When he died I began writing to her more often. I knew it wouldn't fill the gap, but it was a bonding activity and we both enjoyed it. She relished describing her daily adventures, mishaps and memories.



My bird feeder outside the window is a busy place these days, sorry to say mostly sparrows, tho occasionally a magnificent red bird and often sassy bluejays....



The tail end of the year always presents problems for

me. I always manage to surmount them but I lose a little sleep in the process, etc. Prior to Uncle Bill's death I never handled money other than very personal expenses which I guarantee you were few in those days.

About all I was responsible for was the grocery bill.

Now, of course, I have many decisions and lots on my mind. I smile to myself as I say that as my problems moneywise are a drop in the ocean compared to most...



...I don't think I have written you since my friend, Amy Denly was stricken and died. She had a stroke and was in a nursing home for many weeks..I had known and loved Amy since I was ten years old and she was six- teen.

She was a beautiful girl with coal black hair and at the time I first met her she was doing housework for a

friend of my mother's. Mother stopped to see Mrs. Kelly

and I, kidlike explored and came across Amy in what was known as the summer kitchen. She was churning butter.

She has told me since that she too remembered that day

and that she being only sixteen and in those horse and buggy days she was quite a way from home and homesick.

She and Dave would have celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary while she was ill. Dave is past ninety but

living alone. Very brave...



I must interject here that Aunt Margaret later confided

that it was awkward in a small town for an unmarried woman to visit with a friend who had become a widower. She was careful to drop by only when the weather was good and they could sit on the front porch to talk.



...Thank you dear. You filled in the Valentine gap left by your father. As far as I can remember he sent me a Valentine and as a child I looked forward to them. Even in very recent years when he did not feel well he would never fail...

...I am cleaning house. Believe it or not. When I get on one of these jags I remember our experiences at

Norwalk and I think to myself, Why? Do I accumulate all

this junk. Of course only one answer to that. I am a junk collector and enjoy every bit of it. Things being as they are of course someone will have the doubtful

pleasure of sorting it over one of these days, but I

found it extremely interesting in Norwalk, and of

course I managed to add a few choice bits to my collection. Ha!....



Later she told me that helping clean out my Dad's house was a post-graduate course in getting one's affairs in order. She took the Norwalk experience so much to heart that when the day did come for my cousin Mal, his wife Beth, and me to deal with her belongings there was lots to do, but the attic storage space, once described by Tom, much to her delight, as a real museum, was almost bare.



Iowa was a mid-point stopping place for all family members traveling across the country, first her own aunts and uncles, later the grown-up nieces and nephews, and finally the fourth generation. She was horrified, tittilated and delighted by that last wave, young people from the 60's and 70's. I am not sure what the following was about--but I can guess:



"...I have not heard from Mal Winter, Jr. since he was here, but I am sure he has other things on his mind.

I don't doubt you know all about it. Of course you no

doubt know how I reacted. No, I did not react. Took it in my stride and was proud of myself. Decided it was

just as well I do not live near the young generation of

my family as you know my tongue is long and sooner or later!!..."



Routinely, every February, she included a clipping from the Des Moines Register on how to deal with the late winter blahs. It was her way of letting me know about the restlessness of cabin fever brought on by the long weeks of coldness and icy sidewalks and social isolation.

I wrote to her once of how much I cherished my memories

of my childhood visits to the farm, and how sorry I was that my suburban children would never have those great times.

She did not mince words in her reply which went something like this---"those great times you remember were miserable years for me. The depression years and the drought years brought little but bad news and harder work for farmers. The cinch bugs came, the grasshoppers came. There were very few treats"---and she concluded,"I am sure your children will cherish memories that are every bit as important to them as yours are to you!"

In addition to the wide spread correspondence, Grandma and Aunt Margaret both, in their turn, sent columns of neighborhood news to the local paper. It was customary to be paid by the line for such offerings.

To my knowledge everyone except Uncle Bill recorded some family history to pass on. My cousin Mal has preserved his father's and Aunt Margaret's complete with pictures. When I shared my copy of Aunt Margaret's with Tom, ( college instructor by then), he applauded her style. "How can a country person, whose formal education, went no further than a country grade school write so well?" My reply--she reads a lot and always has, and she writes a lot of letters. Education is ongoing.



When I was growing up few women drove cars, certainly not my mother, and very few of my friends' mothers. However the unmarried aunts on both sides of my family did have that skill and that freedom. Perhaps it was because their brothers had no sons to help them with the farm work. Aunt Margaret and Aunt Leola did all of the traditional womens' tasks: gardening, canning, baking, cooking and washing, and processing the dairy products and the poultry. In addition, once or twice a week, they drove into town to pick up repair parts for the farm machinery or to take care of other farm business, which included trading their dressed chickens, cream, butter, and eggs to the grocer for bread, cornflakes, coffee, sugar and flour and other necessities. Aunt Margaret often took Grandpa and Grandma along for the ride and a little sociability with the tradespeople and some of their older friends. On Sunday morning she chauffered them to church.

I remember Uncle Bill coming from the direction of the barnyard to crank the Model T for her to help get us on our way. The strange thing is, I don't remember whether Aunt Margaret cranked it herself when we were ready to start home, or whether some man on the street was drafted. That would not have been a problem. In a small town everyone knows everyone else.



Aunt Margaret loved to "go" on more extended excursions as long as her parents were able to take care of themselves,

and there was a lull in the farm routine, she was free to take off. Various friends cooked up tours. They went hither and yon: Camping in the Ozarks, visiting ex-neighbors in Minnesota and cousins in California. Her brother Mac included her in many trips with his family. They went to the World's Fair in New York City and to Walton in up-state New York where their parents lived before they moved to Northern Iowa and discovered each other.

As the years went by the friends became less mobile and so did she. The long trips were no more. When Robin and Bill got married within two weeks time I thought I might be able to coax her into coming for the weddings, but it was too late. She said she couldn't leave her pets.

She stopped driving her car. I never knew the deciding moment or reason. Truro became land-locked. The last train came through sometime in the late 40's. It was not easy for the elderly non-driver to get out of town. An enterprising young woman was on call to taxi people to the Des Moines airport or the railroad station in Osceola. Once or twice a month a van took senior citizens to Winterset or Osceola,

the nearest county seats.

The trip Aunt Margaret looked forward to the most was when her friend Daisy's daughter, Esther, took the two of them to Indianola to see their doctors and dentists, etc.

I heard many times by a letter and in person how they got weighed in at the doctors and how the checkup went, and then on to celebrating with a big restaurant breakfast of bacon and eggs and pancakes or waffles, all of the no-nos. After that they shopped and had a light lunch and chatted until their chauffer was through work and ready to take them home.

It was a long day and always full of small delights to be savored and cherished in memory.

By the time the children were older I traveled to Iowa alone by air, and rented a car to get to Truro. When I arrived I was greeted by hugs and great affection, and then we would settle down to plot a schedule for the number of days I would be staying. Going to the shopping mall in West Des Moines was often first on the list.

Daisy always joined us when we headed up the interstate. We had lunch at Bishop's Cafeteria. The air-conditioning in the enclosed mall and benches for resting and people-watching were all part of the treat. They liked to shop for costume jewelry, tea cups and bells for Aunt Margaret's collections, needlework kits for the long winter evenings, African violets and new wigs as well as seasonal clothes.

Daisy was ten or fifteen years younger than Aunt Margaret. She and I scouted for new things of interest while Aunt Margaret rested and waited serenely on one of the convenient benches. When we found something exceptional we would go back and get her. Few purchases were made.

In telling me about a trip instigated by a younger friend she reminded me of the time Robin and I visited her and did the usual shopping bit.

"...I have a very dear friend, Lucille McClure. I don't know as you ever met her but she is about your age. She was so dear and helpful at your Dad's funeral. She came for me early one morning and we went to the shopping center. My main object was a new wig. I have to get a replacement about every two years. She also wears wigs

and is an expert on design and helps me keep mine set and looking nice. We hit the jackpot as Yonker's washaving a spring sale and I got a honey for twenty dollars. I had recently got a lovely navy blue polkadot dress from Yonker's and as I have good shoes and bag

plus the dress I had last summer when you were here. I am all set for summer. Of course I have a number of pantsuits for various occaisions. Lucille loves to shopbut, of course, I get tired. One shop we visited one of the clerks said to me, "what a pretty coat" the same one

Robin helped me choose. It is old hat to me of course but every winter when I get it out someone is sure to express "what a pretty coat!". I will always give Robin full credit for the final decision between that and a long brown (horrors) one."



Our list of places to go included the annual trip for her fat little rat terrier, Lassie, to the vet in Osceola.

These routine trips provided us with many intimate real life vignettes. One one such trip, in addition to the usual veterinarian waiting room smells, fumes of non-medicinal alcohol rose from the tiny scruffy old man and the tiny scruffy old dog sitting on his lap. He muttered to no one in particular, "Yes sir--me and Madge, we're real partners, her and me. Madge, she sleeps right there beside my bed. When I have my breakfast coffee I give her a little sip. She likes it with milk and sugar, so that's the way I have it. And when I have a nip of something stronger she gets some of that too. Well, this very morning, you know how animals get all concerned when they sense they're going to be hauled off to the vet. Would you believe this smart little thing hid under the bed and wouldn't come out. I called and I coaxed and tried to explain that this here trip was for her very own good, but she wouldn't have none of it. Well, you know what I finally did, I had me a good slug out of the bottle and then I poured some in a saucer and put it down beside the bed. Hee Hee Hee! She had herself some and then we both felt better about this whole thing. I had to call a taxi to bring us over. Neither one of can walk that fer any more."

During all this Madge whined steadily and buried her head under his arm. "I just hope the Doc can fix her up one more time. I jus don know what I will do without her" The folks in the waiting room clucked sympathetically and withdrew to the privacy of their magazines as boozy tears trickled down his cheek and onto his unshaven chin.

"Well," said Aunt Margaret, when we were in the car headed home. "It's sure true, some people and their pets do start looking and acting a lot like each other. What will he do without her, poor old soul?"

One trip back to Truro was not so pleasant, but a learning experience nevertheless. Two or three weeks before my expected arrival I got a long distance call from Daisy. She was worried about Aunt Margaret. Her blood pressure was high and Daisy felt she should get a checkup at a hospital in Des Moines, something more complete than the monthly trip to Osceola. It would be so convenient if this could be accomplished while I was available with my rented car. Perhaps it wasn't Daisy's idea , perhaps the local doctor had made the suggestion, my memory is hazy here. Aunt Margaret was turning a deaf ear to everyone. Daisy wanted to know my exact travel dates, and asked what I thought about a strategy she had in mind to get her to the hospital. Since it was necessary to make the appointment ahead of time she would take the responsibility of doing it without consulting Aunt Margaret, knowing full well that Aunt Margaret would reject the whole project if she was consulted. The day before the appointment we would tell her, and because it was a done deal, Aunt Margaret would agree to cooperate without making a fuss. What choice did she have? I was a bit nervous about all this, as well I should have been.

When I got to Truro, Aunt Margaret had already made plans for our first day. We would take Lassie to the vet in Osceola, run a couple of other errands, stop and see my Aunt Leola. Daisy was included. Daisy said to me privately, "when are you going to tell her?" I said, " Oh no, it's your scheme, you tell her." So it was settled for Daisy to broach the subject on the way home.

It is not an exaggeration to say that all hell broke loose! Aunt Margaret swore. I had no idea she had such words in her vocabulary. She tried to hit Daisy, but Daisy, in the back seat, was able to dodge. I thought Aunt Margaret's blood pressure would go over the top and she would die of a heart attack right there. Daisy wisely kept silent, and Aunt Margaret also retreated into silence. Our very subdued group finally reached Truro. We dropped Daisy off at her house without a word from anyone, and went on to Aunt Margaret's. After we got inside I was able to screw up my courage, apologize for such bad judgement and assure her that Daisy was undoubtedly just as sorry as I was. We mistakenly thought we were doing it for her own good. Now I realized how disrespectful it had been to try to make decisions for her behind her back. I told her that I would call the hospital and cancel the appointment if she wanted me to. She gave me a hug and said she would think about it, but she could never forgive Daisy.

We spent most of the next day at the hospital, and eventually they decided to send her home with a monitor to wear for a couple of days. The mechanism was not comfortable, but she was stoic about it, no fuss, no complaining. As it turned out her heart was functioning as well as it had been, nothing to be alarmed about. The only directions were to continue with her low-fat, low-sugar diet, etc.

Everything turned out fine, except that a long term friendship was broken forever, As far as I know they never spoke to each other again. Aunt Margaret died peacefully in her sleep two years later at 87 years of age. I kept in touch with Daisy via Christmas letters for many, many years until she either died or became too feeble to answer.



Aunt Margaret approached her last days with equanimity.

She joked about being a mouse in a corner watching us clean out the house. She had early on willed her teacup collection to her insurance man in exchange for his paying the extra insurance. Mal was to be her executor. Mal, Beth and I were to choose what we wanted for our families, and what remained was to go to the Clark County Historical Society. They were to keep what they wanted for their museum and sell the rest. They would also do the final house cleaning so the house could be put on the market. She stated confidentally that we shouldn't worry about her, she was ready to go. In many ways

she was quite practical and modern in her decisions. I still have a letter in my files which I have labeled: Important-Save. She began by: " Jane Dear, I know you are not nearly as concerned about this as I am." And she proceeded to explain why she had not written to me in a while, about the tail end of the year always presenting problems for her, after that she rambled on in her normal chatty style about protecting her house against frozen pipes, another friend dying, going to Indianola and spending too much money Christmas shopping, what a beautiful day it was, and finally "I'm enclosing a clipping that I want you to read carefully. It is a quote from your Governor Brown and applies to California law but I am instructing you to see to it that this is my wish in case circumstances require such measures and I will depend on you to see to it that it is carried out insofar as it is possible. I wouldn't trust Mal to carry out this wish without a little pressure tho he told me Mac could have had further surgery but Mac said no. When one has lived their three score years and ten and are no further comfort to themselves or anyone else: Why prolong Life?"



I was in Truro a few days before Thanksgiving 1979, a drop-in on the way home from a trip to the East Coast. She was wondering whether a couple of her buddies would get together with her as they often did to share the Holiday.

No plans had been made. Everyone was getting a little bit tentative in their old age.

It was a very satisfying visit. I still remember standing at her kitchen window watching as she took Lassie for a walk through the neighbors unfenced backyard, two figures attuned to each other and the moment. It was dusk, the trees and bushes bare, the grass frozen brown. She was bundled against the cold. As my eyes followed their progress I wondered at the games life plays with us.

Here was a woman, the youngest child and only daughter, who was sheltered and taken care of by her parents, and then her older brothers until they were all gone. Her formal education did not go beyond the old Jones one-room school on the hill, except for a short effort to become a nurse which was halted by poor health. She returned home to continue as her mother's helper. Gradually she took on the traditional responsibilities of the unmarried female of a family by caring for the parents as they faded and departed. Along the way she helped her brother farm, taught Sunday School classes, played the piano for church services, helped with church harvest bazaars and dinners, and finally, here she was in the midst of the same old age that came to her parents, but living alone, taking care of her own home and her own life with sturdiness and aplomb. She knew she couldn't do it all by herself, and reached out to family and friends and her God. She received much, and, in her own way, she gave much.

When I left, her hug goodbye was as strong as usual, perhaps stronger.

The day after Thanksgiving the call from Hilda, her next door neighbor, came. Aunt Margaret was a regular at the noon meals for Seniors downtown. When she didn't show up they sent someone to see if there was anything wrong. She had died in her bed. Lassie was still cuddled up beside her. Hilda was prepared to pick me up the next day at the airport and to have me stay with her until Mal and Beth arrived the day after. They were driving non-stop through a big blizzard on the Great Plains.

Aunt Margaret's minister told us how pleased she had been when they invited her for Thanksgiving dinner. She had seemed to be her normal self. He did have a favor to ask of us. He had long wanted to change the traditional order of funeral events, which began with the church service, the body in the casket in front of the mourners, then proceeded to the Field Cemetery out in the country for burial, and finally back to the church hall for lunch. If any of the participants complained he could say that the change was at the request of the out-of-town relatives, and they, the locals, could go back to the original program in the future.

His thought was that it would be better to get the cemetery part over first, because it confronted the end of life on this earth with such finality, and therefore was the most emotionally unsettling. Back at the church the emphasis would be a celebration of a life well-lived with God's Help.

And then the congregation would move on to the church hall for a continuation of that celebration by sharing their memories of Aunt Margaret and enjoying the lunch prepared by the good ladies of the church.

His proposal didn't seem too startling to us. We knew that Aunt Margaret liked to shake people up a bit. How about the time she decided to have her house repainted a warm tan instead of the classic, in those days, small town white.

All went well. The weather was drizzly unpleasant, but it could have been worse, snowing and blocking the roads to the cemetery. If there was any fussing about the change of traditional routine it did not reach our ears.

When the ceremonies were over, and our responsibilities were completed, and I was flying home high above a snow-bound world I jotted down the following in my sketch book:



Margaret Winter, May 26, 1893 --Nov. 23, 1979.



Cold, drizzly, grey, brown November;

A proper time to be buried, to say goodbye, to let go,

The end of the growing year and just before real winter

begins in Iowa.

The old Field Cementery at the end of a country lane,

A proper place to be buried among family and friends.

Gnarled cedars bend and wave in the wind.

The woods beyond are quiet.

The farms nearby still known by the names on the stones:

Loomis, Patterson, Denly, DeLong, Teller, Dodd, Vandermey, Winter.

Under the canopy, chilled by the wind, heads bowed.

The same families, the living and the dead, in this proper time and place.





Jane Winter Leddy, March 11, 2003





















































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