Generations: Ode to Adelaide

My Aunt Adelaide Lewis Walker was only twelve years older than I.  She was my first idol.  It was really nice to have a really young Aunt.  Addie was a teenager when I was very small.  When Judy Garland came out in The Wizard of Oz.  I bragged to my friend's that my aunt looked just like Judy Garland.

She handed down her dolls that she out grew, and costume jewelry that she no longer wanted as well as clothes, that made me feel so grown up. My friends and I played dress up in her old formals.  We felt like princesses going to the ball.  We spun tails of the parties we'd go to and the dates that we would have.  They were food for our imagination.
 
 I thought she was so beautiful.  I watched as she bloomed and dated awed by her experiences.  Tales of the midshipmen that she dated and later the doctors that wooed her. I remember about 10 pm one summer night, she brought her future husband by our house.  Dad brought out the charcoal grill and we roasted hot dogs late at night.  I was about 12 years old and thought that Dr. Bill Walker was so handsome.

When Adelaide was married, she included me in the wedding as a junior bridesmaid. We had the reception at our house, as my Lewis grandparents were not well.  We pick the fall blooming camellias in pink and white and decorated the house.  We made little tea sandwiches and had two kinds of punch.  There was the Methodist punch for the children and people who did not drink.  My Uncle Hubert's wife, Aunt Mary Sykes, did not drink, nor did she believe in drinking alcohol.  My grandmother Porter, my Nana, was directing people to the punch, and made a mistake by directing Aunt Mary to the alcoholic punch.  She had the best time at the wedding, and a week later called Mother up for the recipe.  Mother gave her the one for the non alcoholic punch.  She called Mother back and said that she must have left something out as the punch was not as good as the one she had at the wedding.  We never told her about the extra ingredient.

Adelaide was a beautiful bride.  Looking as lovely as Elizabeth Taylor.  Bill was handsome in his Naval uniform.  I was enchanted.  They spent the first night of their honeymoon in Virginia Beach.  Then they headed to Louisiana .  They were stationed there when Linda was born.  The next time I saw Adelaide, Linda was a baby.  Grand Dad Lewis was living with us and he thought that Linda was wonderful.

Adelaide was always there with good advise.  They moved around with the Navy.  After Louisiana they went to New Jersey.  Ginny was added to the family and we heard the tales of the baby sitter who everyone wanted to hire because the babies were so good.  It ended up that the baby sitter was putting a little bourbon in babies bottles.  Well that did it for that baby sitter.  She was found out.  Fortunately all the babies were all OK.

After New Jersey, they were transferred to Portsmouth Naval Base.  It was here that Julie was born..  I ended up baby sitting for Adelaide and Bill when she was 3 days old.  Thank goodness they were at a neighbors, because I was just a little intimidated by that small a baby.  I both loved and admired my Aunt Adelaide and her wonderful family.

Now she has gone home to join her parents and brothers in Heaven. We all loved you well.

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

When you are not looking life rushes by.  Remember how when you were a child, it what seemed like centuries for Christmas to come.  Now It seems like by the time you get through one Christmas another is on it's heels.  When my boys were still children, people would say enjoy them while they are still little.  Fortunately, I really did enjoy them.

When we lived in Vermont, we would take treks into the woods.  One time we found a secret place that seemed designed just for us.  Up, up a hill through a meadow, into a woods to a place where fir trees grew.  Where if you ducked down under a branch, you would come upon an opening into a circle of trees. Their evergreen fragrant branches bent low forming walls.  The ground was covered in lush, green, deep moss.  This felt like a place of dreams where magic surely could happen in an enchanted Forest.  We sat down on the soft moss floor, and looked up to a roof of tree tops.  Everyone was quiet experiencing the magic of that special place.

There was a stream behind our house and on hot summer days the family would sit on the large stones with our feet in the water or swim in the icy cold swimming holes.  Afterwards we would feel cool no matter how hot the day.  No need for air conditioning.

There were times that we would walk up a hill to pick wild blackberries. One time on our property we found an old orchard of apple trees.  We picked a basket full of the apples even though we were bumpy and not perfect.  I peeled and cut and cooked those apples making some of the best apple sauce ever. 

In the winter the boys loved the snow, playing in the snow piles with their trucks just like they did in the dirt.  They both learned to ski, even Scott, who was three years old.  He would cry when he would fall down for me to come pick him up. Bundled up, how they loved the snow.

The first winter in Vermont.  After church service one of the local men brought his horse drawn sleigh and gave rides to the children who had never ridden on one before.  He gave our whole family a wonderful ride through the open fields.  Years later Chris would hire a sleigh for Melissa and himself, on their honeymoon in Vermont.  There was something about living in the cold north that gets into your blood and keeps us coming back.

Those three years were an adventure.  We bought and fixed up an old one room school house.  It had huge school windows that looked out across fields.  It was in these same fields that we saw our first and only Moose while we were living in Vermont.  We lower half of the fourteen foot ceilings and made an loft bedroom and bath plus over the original ceiling two small bedrooms for the boys.

We put a huge deck on the back looking over the woods.  I planted great ferns around the decking. Chris had a birthday party out there.