Aunt Minnie

Four of ‘the Nuts** in this photo, from left to right:

Carmel, Dora, Minnie, and Adeline (my Nana)… and the locket.

Memories of the ’Nuts — the 24 first cousins who were born during the period known as the Greatest Generation — are sprinkled all throughout my family. I’ll rack my brain to unearth the most memorable ones, although I wish I had more! This particular story has to do with Aunt Minnie, but first, some background…

When they were young, in the 1910s and 20s, a number of the cousins lived together on Lowell Street, in what was known at the time as Vandergrift Heights*. My Nana told tales of the family being outcasts, that their street was referred to as “spaghetti row” due to the abundance of Italian immigrants. As feisty as they were in old age, I can only imagine they were even more so in their youth. One tale told of whoever woke up earliest, got the best clothes, and those who slept in got the old, beat up stuff. A flurried scene of morning activity pops into my mind’s eye, and I wish I could have been a fly on the wall!

These cousins grew up to be mothers, fathers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, aunts, and uncles, and lived out the American dream, having had better lives than their immigrant parents. They lived through two World Wars and the Depression. They saved everything. To this day, as I’m flattening and smoothing out a piece of foil to reuse because “it’s clean and I’m not throwing it away!”— I’m channeling Aunt Minnie.

By the time I knew them, they were old, had endured many trials and tribulations, and were now living out their senior years among their very large family. And there was nothing they’d rather do than fuss on pretty much anybody who had a pulse. Everyone was treated the same. Things like —  “Your hair’s too long!” “What the hell are you doing?” — were always said/shouted…most times with a smile. Cheek pinching was a real thing — generally followed by a giggle. And they took cleanliness and organization to a level that would make Martha Stewart blush.

Back to Aunt Minnie. Born in 1904, Aunt Minnie was, coincidentally, a very, very, very tiny person, as in, most of us surpassed her in height by the time we were 9 or 10… Aunt Minnie was mini. (I had to say it. 🤭)  She never married, and lived with two of her sisters — Carmel (also never married) and Dora (widow): The three of them were affectionately known as The Aunts, a subgroup of the ‘Nuts.  Keep up! I was a frequent flyer at their house. Many days in my youth, when I was looking for something to do after school or on a weekend, I’d call them up and ask if I could come over. 

Visiting was serious business in small-town America. Sometimes we’d sit on the front porch. Sometimes we’d hang in their dining room-area, complete with a thick plastic table cover draped over the cloth tablecloth… in order to keep it clean. Other times we’d play in their back yard, and couldn’t help admiring the succulents… planted in old golf shoes… carefully displayed beneath pine trees. But all the time, they were interested in people. (Some might say a little too interested!)

My grandmother, Adeline, loved costume jewelry — her personal style, alone, is a story for another day— and she would periodically give me her old pieces because she knew I liked them, and would wear them: pins, a bracelet, anything. Upon visiting the Aunts, Aunt Minnie would ask me, “Where’d you get that______?” And I would say, “From my Nana.” After asking me the same question on several different visits and receiving the same answer each time, Aunt Minnie disappears upstairs, not to be outdone by her sister!

She reappears, slaps a locket on the (plastic-covered) dining room table and says, “There. Now you have something of mine.” My heart melted. (Side note: Unlike my grandmother, I don’t recall Aunt Minnie ever wearing much jewelry.)

Aunt Minnie had no children or spouse. So I don’t know what — if anything — is left in this world that she possessed, other than the locket. This may sound strange, but I always sensed a lonely sort of feeling surrounding her when I was young. Like, she bothered with everyone else, because that’s what she did. But I felt a kind of loneliness, because I think she wanted to be remembered, yet she wasn’t certain what she had to leave behind. She didn’t have a career to be known for, that I knew of — outside of taking forwarded calls for her brother who was a doctor, and maintaining garden plots at the cross streets by her home. (Thanks for those tidbits, Weezi). And if memory serves me, I’m not even certain she finished high school. 

But Aunt Minnie was a silent do-er. Ok, maybe not-so-silent all the time ! because she and her sisters yelled at each other a lot! But from my childhood perspective, she loved her family fiercely and took great pride in “taking care of” — whether her house, her yard, or her people. She had quirks like the rest of us — one being that she kept opened jars of mayonnaise under the kitchen sink, others are not fit to print! — and apparently, in her younger years, she was a spit fire. Somehow, I’m not surprised. But spouse or not, children or not, career or not… clearly, Aunt Minnie left her mark.

I want her to know she mattered then and she still matters all these years later, for whenever I wear her locket, I swear I can feel her spark. Thanks, Aunt Minnie. Wherever you are, know that your essence lives on. Know that you are loved and remembered. 💚

*It wasn’t until 1915 that the borough of Vandergrift Heights was consolidated into Vandergrift, PA.

**See previous post, “the ‘Nuts: not about food…”

L.S. September 2023