My Aunt Shirley

My father’s parents divorced when he was only two years old. This didn’t happen very often in the 1930s and the divorce decree is simply chilling to read. The judge actually divided the family in half, just as he did their possessions. Because neither parent really had the means during the Great Depression to support both children, my dad was to be taken to live with their father and his older sister Shirley was to live with their mother. My grandmother Olive couldn’t bear the thought of losing her young son, so the three of them went into hiding for almost a year, scraping by as best they could and moving around a lot in the city to try to avoid the inevitable.



When it finally happened, my father was apparently literally ripped from his distraught seven-year-old sister Shirley’s arms – an event that haunted her for the rest of her life.

Their childhoods went very differently. My dad lived with his father and paternal grandparents at first and, eventually, with his father, stepmother, and half-brother and half-sister in what could be described as a typical working class family of the day.  My Aunt Shirley, however, lived with her mother who apparently rebounded from her divorce with a series of poor choices in men and in declining health. My Aunt Shirley essentially spent her young life supporting my grandmother until Olive’s death a couple of months after I was born.

I never heard my Aunt Shirley ever refer to my father without calling him “my baby brother Ralph.” Ever. When they were both in their seventies, he was still her “baby brother Ralph.” Although they were separated at such a very young age and grew up in different households, they had an incredible bond.


So I guess it’s no surprise that that bond carried over to me. When I was a child, she always treated me like an adult. She trusted me. She took me with her on little secret errands. My Christmas present was always something special and unique, chosen with great care and usually something my own parents would have never purchased for me. She called me “Sis” and “Myrtle” and “Gertrude.” She decorated a little shelf for every single holiday and she'd wait until we came to visit so I could help her.

I’m not a thing like my mother, but I ended up as a clone of my Aunt Shirley. I do things every day that I can trace to her.

Alzheimer’s disease actually stole her away several years before her death in 2003, so she's been gone for quite awhile now, but I still miss her terribly.

Happy birthday, Aunt Shirley.

Love, Myrtle