Recently a friend asked me about the ring I wear on the third finger of my right hand. I found myself telling her some of the story of Aunt Helen, our mother’s only sister. Now as I piece together Aunt Helen’s life, she emerges as a very generous and capable woman, and the rather difficult relationship she and mother had remains somewhat of a mystery.
To begin at
the beginning--their mother died when our mother was about 12 (some say 15).
There were three brothers and the two sisters in that family. Mother was the
oldest girl and took over the maternal duties left void by the death of their
mother. At age 18, she began teaching in a country school and during the
summers attended college somewhere in Colorado (near Gunison) with the intention
of earning a college degree. During those years she and Aunt Helen lived
together and some of mother’s teaching money paid for Helen to attend nursing school.
Mother made the required uniforms for Helen and together they were somewhat
involved in a church in Joplin. At one point they became a threesome—Florence,
Helen, and a young bachelor from Minnesota named James Brinks. We all know the
result—Jim and Florence were married and Helen finished her training and started
to work at a hospital in Kansas City (on the Kansas side, I think).
That’s
were their lives separated—Florence moved with Jim to Chicago so he could attend
Moody Bible Institute and study for the ministry. Helen stayed as a nurse in
the Kansas City area. I am not at all sure what their relationship was like at
that time, but I’m sure Helen’s life was shattered, and Florence thought that
because of that she remained angry for years.
My first awareness of Helen came while in Kimball, Nebraska, in the form of wonderful crates of fruit that she sent. What a treat! A real orange, a juicy red apple, grapefruit in the middle of winter! Little was said in my presence of where this came from, but later I understood--Helen could not say it, but she still cared deeply for her sister.
We moved from Nebraska to Oregon—even further away from Helen. I suspect the communication between the sisters was very sparse—I certainly was not aware of it. And the fruit stopped coming—after all, we were in the middle of a fruit basket in the Umpqua River valley—u-pick fruit and vegetables—peaches, apples, cherries, beans, etc. And we did, and Mother canned it—100’s of jars each summer. With all that canning and a cow pastured nearby, I suspect we ate very well.
But let me get back to Helen. Our Oakland time lasted 3-4 years, and then we moved to Cloverdale, a small community in Tillamook County. That’s when Aunt Helen came into our lives again. She must have been very capable—her move to Tillamook Community Hospital to become the director of nursing there, involved resigning from being a director of nursing at a very prestigious Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. (While in Houston awhile back, I discovered that there were three Methodist Hospitals there, so I was not able to pinpoint exactly where she had been.) She had never learned to drive, so we made frequent trips into Tillamook to pick her up for holidays, etc. To be honest, I was scared to death of her, and never understood her sharp tongue or her generosity. She insisted on paying for groceries, but seemed the ultimate crabby woman—a true mystery to an adolescent. However, she was there at the Tillamook hospital when “Jim” needed her—he had couple of surgeries, one non-fatal heart attack and one fatal.
The fatal heart attack
necessitated Mother and me to move quickly—she needed to vacate the manse and I
needed to be in school within a month. Because of family in Portland, it
seemed wise to relocate there, and we did. It didn’t take long. Aunt Helen
found a Director of Nursing position at the hospital in Oregon City, just
outside of Portland. Again, she was a frequent visitor, this time at our Albina
Street apartment. This is where she became a major presence in my life. I
remained scared of her sharp tongue. It seemed to me that she could be enjoying
light conversation one minute and biting your head off in the next
sentence--laughing and bitter at the same time. I suspect Mother was very
leery of her, too, and upon occasion would mention how difficult their
relationship was. Always had been? I don’t know.
High school friends of mine still remind me of how jealous they were of me having Aunt Helen in my life. And, it wasn’t because she was so much fun to be around. It was because of the clothes she bought for me. I must have been very well dressed in high school. I was the only one Mother was sewing for and Aunt Helen was taking me shopping at very trendy shops in downtown Portland. These high school friends thought (and still do think) it was amazing to have an aunt that took you shopping for clothes.
I now realize that she wasn’t buying clothes for me, she was buying them for Mother--still paying back her older sister for putting her through nursing school. And of course, “Jim” was no longer part of the equation as far as she was concerned, so it could be done without factoring in the male ego. When I thanked her for the shopping trip, her only response was, “Be nice to your mother”.
The last time I saw Aunt Helen was about the time Don and I were married. After she retired from the Oregon City Hospital she came through Santa Barbara to see Mother. Of course, she had a wedding present for us—Helen Corbitt cookbooks. Once again, she and mother had a very tense visit. And once again she was moving to where she could be helpful. Their older brother’s widow was living in Florida caring for a “not quite bright’ (mother’s way of stating it) daughter, Mary Grace. Aunt Helen moved there to be close to someone she could look after and to be useful.
That is the last I heard or knew of her. I think she and mother were not in touch very often. Upon occasion Mother would express regret, with deep sadness, that the two of them did not communicate better. Whether she died before or after mother did, is unknown to me.
Oh, yes, that ring which I wear daily. When I turned eighteen, it was my birthday present from her. She told me it had been their mother’s brooch and she had it made into a ring for me. At eighteen I was not interested, but had the sense to keep it in a safe place. In my early twenties, its significance became important to me, and remains so to this day. And now you have Aunt Helen’s story, as I know it, and why I wear the ring she gave me. How I wish I had had the insight and maturity to appreciate her when she was around.
