October 1, 2017
Our Aunt Minnie wasn’t really our aunt. In my memory, she was a tiny lady who lived
upstairs from my Great Aunt Ceil and Great Uncle Frank Loughan. Ceil was the sister of my grandmother Maude
Butler Ladue. Minnie was somehow a
distant cousin and I have never I figured out the connection.
She died fifty years ago today, three days after my best
friend from high school died at the age of 16.
She was 91. Why this disparity?
Aunt Minnie was Minnie Doyle. She was born in 1876, the year the US
celebrated its centennial. She was
related to us through Joe Ladue who made millions in the Alaskan Gold Rush only
to lose it all later. Oddly, Joe Ladue
was not related to any of the Ladue’s on my side of the family but through my
grandmother’s line—the Butlers of Beekmantown.
I only ever remember Aunt Minnie as an old woman. She was tiny with gray bobbed hair. She lived upstairs from my great aunt and
uncle in a tiny apartment. She’d been
widowed since the 1930’s. In my memory,
she was always a happy woman, satisfied with her lot in life, never bitter,
always pleasant. I’d often wander over
to visit her on Brinkerhoff Street during a lunchtime break from high
school. I’d bring my lunch and just sit
with her. She was a happy person and made others around her happy. She was loved by everyone.
She never adapted to television. I can still see her sitting
in her small rocking chair, a small radio next to her on a stand. She loved The Yankees and could always talk
about how they were doing.
At some point, while I was still in high school, she made a
decision to leave her apartment and move into a newly built nursing home. She probably had nothing except Social
Security and possibly a pension from her long-dead husband. I’m sure she signed everything over the
Sacred Heart when she moved in. For two
years she shared a room with another woman.
In those days, I’d cut through Riverside Cemetery on my way to visit
here and if there’d been a recent burial I’d snitch a few flowers and bring
them to her. She always laughed at how
the flowers came into her possession.
Sometime in the mid-summer of 1967 she fell and broke her
hip. She was probably 91 at the time and
the only place for rehabilitation was in the hospital. Just before I left for college I stopped in
to visit here. I was too young to
understand fully what I was seeing. She
held my hand and didn’t want to let go of it when I left. I had no idea then about fear of death or the
loneliness of old age. I was 18 and off to college in Troy and on a new
adventure. It was the last time I saw
her.
She died three days after my best friend’s death. The funeral was in Plattsburgh, but she was
buried with her husband in Schenectady.
My parents came down to Albany for the burial. They met me after the burial and that was
that. Aunt Minnie was gone as was my
friend David—both within a three-day span.
I simply moved on with my life.
Periodically, if I’m in the Schenectady area, I’ll stop in
the cemetery. I’m left with more
questions than answers. Who was her
husband and why is she buried there?
It doesn’t matter.
What matters is that our lives crossed for 18 years. I’m a better person for having known her and
I’m a better person for having seen what a good old-age can be. It’s hard to think of myself at 18 when I’m
now 68—far closer to being the person Aunt Minnie was when I knew her. Let go.
Be who you are. Embrace the age
you’re at. Try to be more like her than
some crotchety old man.
Thanks Aunt Minnie.
I’m not there yet, but when I am I want to be like you.
