A Sweet Memory

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

I have mentioned, in previous postings, that my Father came from a large family – he was number five in a group of 13 children. He was born in 1892, and was 20 years older than my Mother.

10 of the 13 children – 1936-1938  Daddy is fourth from left. Uncle Ed is on the left.

I think his closest sibling was a brother, Edwin, who we called Uncle Ed, or E.O.  He had left the family farm, went to college, and had a typewriter shop in Shreveport, Louisiana.  He had married, but had no children.  He became a widower in about 1961.

While Fred and I lived in Fort Worth, Texas, he married a lovely lady, Joecilla, who had been widowed very young, after about four years of marriage, and never married again – until she met Uncle Ed. He moved to her house outside of Shreveport.

Uncle Ed and Aunt Joecilla visiting Albuquerque, New Mexico – 1960’s

When our little family was moving from San Antonio, Texas to Florida in 1974, we stopped to visit and stay with Uncle Ed and Aunt Joecilla for a few days.  She had a dress shop in her little town, and women from Shreveport would drive the 30 miles from Shreveport to shop in her store.  She had quite good taste in clothing.

Uncle Ed was two years older than my Father, and at his age at that time – 84 – was in rather ill health.  As a footnote – my father had already passed away by this time.

To tell this story, I must brag a bit here – both of our daughters were reading before they ever went to school.  That includes kindergarten at age five.  I have always said that being able to read is probably one of the most important things in life.  If you can’t read, you can’t do math, since many math problems are word problems.

I have a sweet memory stored away in my mind of Karen, sitting on that big blue couch in the picture below, with a book on her lap, as if she were reading it.  She was about three years old, and the book was upside down!  But she wanted to read so badly, she was trying to make the words work for her.

In any case, at this point of time, our Karen was seven-years-old (7) and Janet was four-years-old (4).

Karen had been through kindergarten and first grade before we moved to Florida.  However, she and I had been reading together since she was quite small, and by the time she was in kindergarten, she was one of only a few in her class that finished the reading program the school offered.

All of that is important to this story.  You see, while we were visiting Uncle Ed and Aunt Joecilla in 1974, there was one day that I went looking for Karen for some reason.  I couldn’t seem to find her anywhere.  However, when I looked in the den, there was Uncle Ed, stretched out on the sofa with an afghan draped over him.  And there was Karen, sitting on a stool at his side, reading a story to him!  He was enraptured with her and her story!  I have no remembrance of the story she was reading, but she was having a great time reading to him, and he was having a great time listening to her!  They just enjoyed each others’ company.  I waited until she had finished the story before approaching her with whatever I needed her to do.  I most certainly didn’t want to interrupt that sweet time between the two of them.

As I said – it is a sweet memory for me.

And just incidentally – she is a librarian now!

Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years

Tags: Family History, Family Memories, Louisiana heritage