Sunday Memories
Judy Wills
My Aunt Jessie…..the only “auntie” that I was close to. There was only her and my mother on that side of the family. Of course, my dad was one of 13 children, so I had lots and lots of cousins. But they were all in Texas or Louisiana….or SOMEwhere else.
Because Jessie never married, she became the breadwinner of the family after her father died, and
Grannie’s Favorite Chair
Granny lived with her. And because she never married, her security became the things she owned. She became an expert in antiques. Her love of antiques started when my grandfather purchased – for $5.00 – a beat-up old chair frame for her. She refinished and re-upholstered that chair, and it became the first of many antique items that filled her house and her life. It became Granny’s favorite chair.
She had several love seats. She had a coffee table that was magnificent – it was quite large and the top (covered with glass) was one solid piece of mahogany. Beautiful. (One family story goes that a large slab of wood fell off a train and someone – Grandpa? – found it, took it and made it into that coffee table.
She had an antique pump organ, and Victrola. Mother said Granny always loved to have music around the house.
She had curio cabinets. She had one piece of solid cherry wood that was a china cabinet. The top had glass doors through which you could see the lovely antique tableware she had found.
She was always on the lookout for estate sales, and shopped at as many of them as she could. She found wonderful sales, and was able to purchase many good things at great prices. At one time, she was the president of the Albuquerque Antique Club. Her house was large enough to accommodate all of her purchases, and she had a gift for placement of her pieces. As we prepared to have an “auction” of her household items, the auctioneer looked around, and said, “This is some of the best Victorian furniture I’ve ever seen!”
Unfortunately, Jessie never thought any of us wanted anything of hers. Because none of us had expressed an interest in any of her things, some time before she died I suggested we should all make a list of her things we wanted, and give it to her. If there was a duplication in “wishes” – hers was to be the final decision. She was quite delighted to see how much we loved her things, after all. And, I must admit that, after I had made my “list,” I finished it with the statement that we would rather have HER in our lives than anything of hers….but that we loved her and wanted to have keepsakes of her.
boarded up store fronts, while the Kimo Theater and the Indian Jewelry stores are still going strong. “Old town Albuquerque is a thriving tourist center, and the Rio Grande River actually had water in it. Of course, most of that water had probably come from the heavy rains and flooding in Colorado. The city has expanded toward all points of the compass, and is no longer the Albuquerque where I grew up. Now it’s just another big city, with all the big city problems, as far as I am concerned.
would have been really disappointed if I had traveled all that way for the Balloon Fiesta, only to have rainy and windy weather the only two days I was there. Actually, I hadn’t even realized I was going to be in Albuquerque during the Balloon Fiesta until I had made all my motel reservations, and couldn’t change them. However, the Anderson-Abruzzo International Balloon Museum Foundation has built a beautiful big Balloon Museum since I had last been in Albuquerque, so I was able to visit the museum in spite of the bad weather. 
that had always been there since I was a teenager. We had heard all kinds of stories about the closed society of “Los Penitentes” or “The Brothers of the Pious Fraternity of Our Father Jesus the Nazarene” who lived somewhere in the Tijeras Canon area, and practiced their mysterious rituals there. They were known for their ascetic practices, which included self-flagellation in private ceremonies during Lent, and processions during Holy Week which ended with the reenactment of Christ’s crucifixion on Good Friday. Thus, the crosses we guessed. I never knew anyone who witnessed one of their ceremonies or knew a Penitente personally.
Then it was on thru Moriarty, NM with its Tee-Pee Motel and Santa Rosa, NM, which I had missed on that scary day, on my way to Albuquerque, just a few days before. Then I passed thru Tucumcari, NM, back across the border into West Texas, thru Wildorado,TX with its many wind generators, and finally into Amarillo, TX.
the Texas Air & Space Museum located at the Rick Husband International Airport, and the Kwahadi Museum of the American Indian located on I-40 just east of the city. This American Indian Museum had some of the most beautiful paintings, and when I ask about them, was told most of them were painted by an author named Thomas E. Mails, as illustrations for his book “Mystic Warriors of the Plains.”
I have my great grandfather’s fifth grade reading book called,
a neat old house that I loved. It had a sunken living room – with an even more sunken fireplace. It had what is known as “cove” ceilings – where the wall joins the ceiling in a smooth curve – no sharp angles. Makes for a really nice effect.
Antonio, she owned and operated a small diner in downtown San Antonio, called The White House Lunch. She had a cook, but I know that Granny made the pies – I still have some of her recipes. They were so good that people would come in just for a slice of pie – or to purchase the entire pie to take home!
as the place to go for some of the “best beef stew what am.” While working the diner, Jessie met an Army Nurse, stationed at Fort Sam Houston, and they became very close friends. This nurse would work the counter at the diner in her off-times. This same nurse was stationed in Korea and was the one who brought a pearl ring back for me. They remained life-long friends.
Two of the chests are what we would call “foot locker” size, and the larger one is “steamer trunk” size. All are ornately hand-carved with Chinese scenes on them. And the inside wood is camphor wood, which is deliciously aromatic, and guaranteed to keep critters away from woolens and other fabrics.
Last Sunday one of our hymns was What a friend. Out of curiosity (I have a lot of that) I looked to see when this beautiful poem was written and who was the author. Fortunately our church uses an older hymnal which has the information at the bottom of the song. What a Friend was written in 1855 by Joseph Scriven. Apparently the longing for friendship and comfort is not new to mankind. The song has three stanzas and I would love to share them with you. I am taking the words from a Broadman Hymnal that was used in my church when I was a very young child. It is so old there is no copyright/publication page.
Old Things R New 