Friday, July 19, 2013

Sepia Saturday 186: Auntie Hilda

Brunhilde came to mind immediately. Wagnerian.

But I have nothing that matches - no swords, no armor, no lances.

What I do have is a photo of my Aunt Hilda which is as close to Brunhilde as I can get. She's second from right. Note the gentleman's arm around her waist.



 Hilda never married. Here's a letter from my cousin which offers an explanation.



The pertinent part of the letter reads: "Hilda and Stuart Carroll had a love affair for years but
they were cousins far removed that's why they didn't get married."

All my Irish Catholic aunts were named Mary something and Hilda was Mary Hilda Irene Killeen (1887 - 1968). She was one of my three "maiden" aunts and the oldest of the lot. I knew her only as an elderly woman who wore lisle stockings and those awful clunky shoes with a thick wedge heel and laces up the front..."nun's shoes".  She ended up never marrying which in those days was a tragedy; this letter implies that she never got over Stuart. Instead she worked as a secretary for the Canadian Pacific Railway for 50 years, retiring with the proverbial gold watch. I wish I knew more.

Every Sunday after mass, I would stop in at my "nest of aunts" house which was next door to the church. All three unmarried aunts lived there with my Grandmother. They lived with her for their entire lives. It was a lively home and they treated me as an adult; I loved those visits.  After the last mass on Sunday, the house would be over-flowing with cousins and aunts, chatter filling the air, lots of tea being drunk, kids running in and out of the house. My grandmother sat in a rocking chair presiding over the activities.

Here's a photo of the three maiden aunts and others with my sister in 1947. Hilda is second from right. It's a terrible picture but the only one I have of her. This was a Christmas party but looks more like a funeral. My guess is that they were just going out the door when someone said "Stop - I want to get a picture." No doubt there was fiddling around with lighting and focusing. It would have been very cold outside; December in Winnipeg often brings temperatures well below zero. The ladies were wrapped up in furs and probably very uncomfortable.  My father's white writing on the drapes adds a ironic whimsy to the glum scene. As he was probably the photographer I think he was trying to "put lipstick on a pig" as we say.

 


I searched for an appropriate poem or limerick to add here - something about Hilda and I stumbled on the beautiful poetry of Hilda Doolittle. Out of her vast body of work, I chose Heat for today as I sit in our avocado grove where it's 90 F.  and hear fruit dropping from the trees and thumping into the mulch. While we're waiting for the sea breeze to cut the heat, we can make more guacamole for dinner tonight.

Heat

O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.

Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air--
fruit cannot fall into heat
that presses up and blunts
the points of pears
and rounds the grapes.

Cut the heat--
plough through it,
turning it on either side
of your path.

22 comments:

  1. Awww, what a sad story.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice to see someone simply reminiscing good times.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Is that your Irish uncle with the BIG hair and the beard? He looks like a lot of fun! Stuart is really cute. What a shame they let a little minor incest get in their way.
    Barbara

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wish I'd known him. I wish I had some of that hair. I wish i'd had his guts and vision.

      Delete
  4. Too bad they didn't get married. If only they'd had family land to keep in the family. That poem about heat just makes them sweat more up there in their furs.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I thought of Wagner too when I saw the SS theme photo and wondered if someone would pick it up. A creative way to introduce a special person.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wonderful post. Great poem too.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Three maiden aunts that is unusual but you have good time memories of them. Avacados dropping off the tree. How lucky you are. We have to pay $3 for one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fallbrook California where I live (Barbara and Nancy do too) is a center for avocado growing. The trees march up and down the hills, grove after grove. Sometimes, I see them actually roll down into the gutters and nobody bothers to pick them up.

      Delete
  8. Sounds like our Sundays as a child. Everyone would go to Mass and then go to an aunt's house for cake and tea. As the cousins grew up this stopped.

    Most of my Irish family has Mary in their names as well.

    Great post, like the Canadian touch.

    Who is the man with his arm around Hilda's waist?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Stuart, the unrequited love. I see that I didn't really explainthat. Oh, for an editor!



      Delete
  9. Rather sad to have three maiden aunts in the 'nest'. They should have married and defied convention. "Lipstick on the pig" - I must remember that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From a child's perspective, three maiden aunts is solid gold. You get spoiled, spoiled, spoiled.

      Delete
  10. I can totally see how having maiden aunts being a good thing.... oh yes! I can just bet life was so much fun with them!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Had a laugh at the "aunt's nest," although it doesn't sound quite the same with an English (or Antipodean) accent. I presume the writing is on the negative, not on the actual drapes?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We had questionable taste in interior decoration but we weren't that bad! No spray paint in those days either.

      Delete
  12. What a fascinating post. And that phrase "nest of aunts house" will stick in my memory for a long time.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Love the image of your family time. I miss guacamole.

    Hazel

    ReplyDelete
  14. You can see whay he is so keen to have his arm round her waist.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Quite gloomy for a Xmas picture...
    which makes it only funnier.
    We had a couple of nests of aunts in our family.
    They always seemed to be a lively lot.
    :)~
    HUGZ

    ReplyDelete
  16. That's so sad. I wonder how far removed her cousin was. Maybe that was just an excuse. She really wanted to stay home with her mom and sisters.
    Nancy

    ReplyDelete
  17. There was a Catholic family in our neighborhood in which the daughters were Mary somebody - Mary Theresa, Mary Christine, Mary Patricia. So the kids in the neighborhood started calling their brothers Mary John, Mary Michael, etc.

    I had a little maiden aunt that never married and it always embarrassed her. In fact, she wanted to be buried next to her brother so that people would think they were a married couple. Isn't that pathetic?

    ReplyDelete