Yesterday would have been my Aunt Lucille's 92nd birthday. She lived to be almost 89 year old. This is a picture of us taken in 1996, so it is almost 20 years ago.
Aunt Lucille was my father's sister. He had 3 older sisters--Ottilie, Helen, and Lucille. Aunt Lucille was born in 1922 as Lucille Lucker, and then 7 years later, my father was born. As I am writing this, I think Lucille was the youngest girl, but now I am wondering. Aunt Lucille was devoted to my father. When my father had his first daughter, he named her Lucille (my sister, who we later nicknamed Angel). Aunt Lucille was a wonderful sister. When Ottilie died at age 16 of Ewings' Sarcoma in 1934 or something, my Aunt Lucille vowed that if she ever had a daughter, she would name her Ottilie. And she did have one girl, my cousin, Ottilie.
Ottilie was her third child. I remember she told me she got married to my Uncle Bill late---in her mid 20's, which was late for those days. First she had Billy, and then Chuckie (named after my father, Charles), and then finally, the youngest, my cousin, David. She was a wonderful mother. She was utterly devoted to her children. She was a "hairdresser", which is what you were called in those days. She worked for the same salon for years....and she didn't fully retire until she was well into her 80's. She told me she was worried some of her clients, who were in their 90's, wouldn't have anyone who knew how to "wash and set" their hair the way she did, which is what people did in those days...they got their hair washed once a week, and then had it "set." She had some clients for 60 years.
Aunt Lucille was a devoted daughter. She spoke with great love for her mother, who died in the mid-50's, of breast cancer. And she was a loving daughter to her father, my grandfather, who lived almost to age 96, when he died in 1976. Grandpop could be difficult, but I never saw my Aunt Lucille get annoyed. I can see her laughing about a Grandpop story now.
She was wonderful and special to me. In my childhood, I remember so many of my happy memories included her. She never came to our house without bringing a dozen Dunkin' Donuts, which was a big deal for us. She always came to our house for holiday meals, and it was a breath of fresh air whenever she came. My Aunt Lucille was always a peacemaker, and always made a point to get together with family. I always remember that when we would try to make plans, instead of saying "we'll get together after Christmas" or some other vague date, she would say "pick a date...we can always change it." And she was right. If we made a plan to meet on January 21st, for example, it usually worked out. I never make vague plans with people now. I always say "pick a date...we can always change it."
She did funny things. She would give up things, like a penance, for a long time, until what she was praying for. I can remember her being so happy when her daughter, Ottilie, got married. I can remember she gave up so many things while she waited for Ottilie to have a baby...which eventually happened.
She did other funny things. She decided to take tap dance lessons in her 60's. She told me how she had given dance lessons to friends at their childhood home at the very top of North Broad Street in Philadelphia, near Cheltenham Avenue, in the 40's. At some point, she decided to take more lessons. I can remember going to her "recital"--all the kids were from ages 3-16....and then there was a special number with my Aunt Lucille, wearing a black leotard and tights, with tap shoes, dancing her heart out. The crowd loved it. And she loved it.
She loved her children, and her grandchildren. She loved the beach. I guess she and my uncle only had one car, because I remember that after working on Saturday at the shop (what she called the hair salon), she would walk from her house a half mile to the SEPTA train in Glenside, take the train downtown, walk over to the Greyhound Station, and take the bus down to Ocean City...and then walk 5 blocks to her little rented place...and she would make the reverse trip on Monday night, to go to work on Tuesday.
Her family, or my father's family, did things I thought were weird, but she never stopped doing them. Specifically, my father's side of the family loves taking pictures with dead people, which I think is a little odd. When her sister Ottilie died, there were all kinds of pictures of poor Ottilie lying in their living room (I guess funerals were in living rooms in the early 30's during the Depression). When my sister, Lorraine, died, I can remember her taking pictures of Lorraine at the funeral home.
Her oldest son, Billy, died very unexpectedly, and very tragically one January, right after I had had a baby. They left him in the hospital bed, until my Aunt's plane arrived, so she could see him. He was living in Georgia at the time, and I couldn't go to the funeral. When she returned, she showed me pictures she had taken of her with Billy, after he had passed away. She was at the top of the bed, smiling, with dear Billy lying there, looking very peaceful. But he was gone. She was saying he had looked good, so she asked me several times if I thought he looked good, and I really couldn't think of a good answer...it was a photo of her smiling next to her deceased son. I finally said, "well, Aunt Lucile, I think he looks great for a dead person." She looked at me and burst into laughter...she had a great sense of humor and a laugh that made us all laugh.
And yet, Aunt Lucille told me several years after Billy died that of all her life's sorrows, she had gotten over them all..but that she had never gotten over losing Billy, and the pain of losing him was as raw for her as the day it happened. To the rest of us, though, she never showed that great pain. She was always up, or so it seemed, which is why that pain made me so sad for her.
She had a "collecting" gene, which is maybe where I got it...we hate to throw things away. I can remember visiting her home...she had cards I had sent her from when I went to college, and when I traveled to Russia, as well as most of the holiday cards I had sent her. She laughed when I told her I was giving her "permission" to throw all my old letters away, but she seemed relieved. But I got where she was coming from...the thinking that someday, I would maybe want to see those old letters. I am trying to get better, and I can remember a few weeks after I told her to throw out those letters...I called her to ask if she had actually done it, and she apologized, that yes, she had. She laughed when I told her I was proud of her--I knew how hard that was for her.
She was special, and her funeral reflected how special she was. She did so many quirky things that were either eccentric or just lovely, but it always made us happy. She always gave us each a $2 bill every time she saw us. She did it for my children, too. She loved sweets, chocolate turtles most of all, so much so that we all got a box of turtles on our plate at her funeral.
Whenever I take a picture, I think of my Aunt Lucille. She would drive us crazy taking pictures.. ...every event came to a halt, so she could get a picture. She always said you don't know when you will see that person again, and she wanted to make sure she got a picture of that person. If we were having a meal in a restaurant, she would tip the waiter $2 to take a photo of the people there. When I thought about writing about her, I wondered if I had a photo...you know the way things are now, you can't get to your photos? Then I remembered this photo that was taken on just some plain day at my house, when we were gathered for someone's baby shower. I think this is a great picture of us, and it has been on my wall for the last 20 years. But it made me think of all those people in my life, who I wish I had a good picture of--and maybe we should start taking more pictures of those special people in our lives. I thought of Aunt Lucille yesterday, but most of all I was thinking how much she has been missed these past three three years.
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