I Remember…. Cousins, Mother’s Side~Part 1

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

I suppose most of us have a lot of cousins. I certainly do, as my Dad was one of 13 children!  Unfortunately, most of them I don’t know or don’t remember, not having contact with them for many years, not having lived near any of them.  But I’ll write about them another time.

In this post, I want to mention my cousins on my Mother’s side.  Mother was one of only two siblings in her family, and her sister, my Aunt Jessie, never married, so there are no first cousins there.

However, there are some second cousins that are very close to me.  You see, my Grandmother was the oldest of three girls in her family.

1953 – Albuquerque, New Mexico – Lillie, Granny, Loa

There was an older brother, Harry, who died six months after my Granny was born.

This is a tin-type picture, possibly of Harry, Granny’s brother

Granny was born in 1892, her sister, Loa, was born in 1898, and the youngest sister, Lillie, was born in 1903.  Since my Aunt Jessie was born in 1910, and my Mother in 1913, that meant that Lillie was only seven years older than Jessie, and just 10 years older than Mother.  I remember Mother telling me once that she, Jessie, and Lillie grew up more like sisters, rather than Aunt and nieces.  There was a special bond among the three of them.

When Lillie married and had her sons (three of them), the boys became favorite cousins.  Jimmie Mac was just a year older than my brother, Bill.  Gary, the middle son, was very near my age, and Pat, the youngest, was the favorite of all of us.  In Jessie’s later years, she would go to Texas and spend Thanksgiving with the three boys and their families.  When my Mother died, Pat was one of the first ones I called with the news. He was devastated.

I’ve kept fairly close contact with Pat through the years.  Jimmie, being the oldest, just wasn’t in my sphere of familiarity.  However, when Pat and Jimmie came for a short visit back in 2001, it was a fun time.  You see, those two boys had gone to a cooking school in Tuscany, Italy,  a short time before.  I remember Pat saying that he just didn’t know Jimmie that well, and wanted to know him better.  I remember asking Pat why they went to Tuscany to cooking school, rather than France. He huffed out a breath and said, “huh! The French couldn’t boil water until the Italians taught them how!”  We both howled with laughter.

1953 – Albuquerque, New Mexico – Lillie, Granny, Loa

We had a great time reminiscing about times past. I remembered one visit to San Antonio, and we were at their house.  One of the boys had an accordion.  I was rather young, but had been taking piano lessons for many years, so I picked up that instrument and began playing on it.  Of course, I had no clue what the “buttons” were for, but I did know the keyboard.  I just remember Pat’s mouth hanging open, watching me play it – without ever having played it before!  They had struggled to learn to play it.

~~~~~~~~~~To Be Continued~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: Cousins