Tribute: Aunt Lorna

As my Aunt Lorna anticipates her birthday next week I would like to hail her for her conscience, fortitude, generosity and kindness.  That tribute doesn’t even nip at all her other attributes.

She was born to a poor family yet she and her two elder sisters were well educated through high school.  Aunt Lorna traveled from Montreal Canada to San Francisco to work.  As a young high school graduate and secretary, she got all her clothes hand-made by a tailor.  Imagine that, ladies!

She bought a Mustang to drive back east.  She took care of us and lived with us for a while when she went to college, then she became a high school English teacher.  She taught Romeo and Juliet to her ninth graders, probably MacBeth to her tenth graders.  Students feared and loved her, as she’d take students to Stratford, Ontario to the Shakespeare festival.

Aunt Lorna and friend and colleague Joanie researched and initated the first high school English programs related to the Holocaust, and Native Americans.  They were pioneers in a new form of teaching.  Spelling and syntax weren’t the be-all and end-all.  Literature was to be enjoyed and cherished.

My parents and Aunt Lorna were the reasons I was reading Death Be Not Proud and The Diary of Anne Frank at age eight.  Plus A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and To Kill a Mockingbird.  But Hemingway and Steinbeck, plus the Bard, were her tried and true friends.

When Aunt Lorna and Joanie started their summertime catering business, they catered for parties required to be held due to my father’s job at the time.  All the kids helped out, passing trays for the guests or working in the kitchen.  Aunt Lorna has always had an eye for quality and value, and would contribute use of her silver and linens as needed to make the party a success.

The tasting rule was that one had to taste the goods, then could ask the ingredients (presumably she would not have served husband Jim fish if she knew of his allergies).  It was a great rule!  She made this three-cheese mousse with Roquefort, that I thought was stinky and so wouldn’t try it.  It was marvelous.  Today I can walk into a store in Italy and order Gorgonzola Dolce and know to serve it with fresh pears.

When we were kids, every Christmas Aunt Lorna would come to breakfast.  One year when I was in college, she got stuck in the snow before going down a steep hill to our driveway and we all went to rescue her.

On Saturday I received a package.  It contained a magazine article about leaf ceramic ware, majolica, and a plate that made its way from my great-aunt’s home in Montreal to Aunt Lorna’s.  While there, Jim was trying to turn on a light, and broke the plate.  Like Humpty-Dumpty, it’s back together again and on display in our corner cabinet.

Aunt Lorna didn’t teach me how to iron, Mom did.  But I now have her brand of iron that makes quick work of shirts and linens.  Luckily I have a cleaner for Jim’s shirts because he’s a big guy and his shirts still take a long time to iron.  She combs “estate sales” for collectibles and has the largest selections of crystal and linens I’ve ever seen.  I keep two beautifully embroidered linen towels in our bathroom without ever using them, just washing and ironing them every few months.

In July of 2005, Lorna’s oldest sister Joan died of cancer.  We all went to Canada for the funeral.  Less than two months ago my mother died, also of cancer.  Now it’s up to the youngest and healthiest sister to carry on, and that she will, with grace and style.

I was somewhat apprehensive about Aunt Lorna and Joanie meeting Jim’s parents for the first time.  Not only did they hit it off, they provided Jim’s folks the Civil War Suite at a local B&B, and took us to a Concord grape vineyard to meet the owner and see the mechanical grape picker.

Dinner is always a treat and we talked and laughed well into the evening.

Margie & Joe

They took Jim’s folks to Lake Erie for sunset and took this photo, which they have framed in their living room.

Happy birthday, Aunt Lorna.  Thanks for teaching me so much over my fifty years on this earth.

I expect this to be corrected in red pen and sent back to me for spelling and grammatical errors, with your effusive script, of course.

We’re always here for you, no matter what.  With much love, Dee