My father’s oldest sister passed away on Thursday. She was a product of a different time and age. A time we nostalgically think of as a kinder and more gentler age. She was certainly a gentle soul. I spent the morning looking at her photo albums that I am trying to see how I can scan in without damaging the old photos. It was an age where her grandparents depended on horses and buggies to get around. There are pictures of her Dad in the new fangled automobiles, a passion of his and of his only surviving son, my Dad. There were pictures of their Mom playing the French Horn in a circus band. There were pictures of her always dressed like a lady. One of my favorite pictures was of her and two friends in bathing suits showing an Aunt Beth with a beautiful hour glass figure.
In her last couple of years Aunt Beth developed dementia and my brothers Reid and Jerry and his wife Debi became the care givers handling all of her financial affairs and giving her the love and support she needed to get by. She had a couple of hospitalizations but in spite of her wandering mind she was in good health. The heart attack that took her was very swift and she didn’t suffer.
Beth in pictures was almost always the one on the end. She wasn’t as adventurous as her sister Hazel. She wasn’t as complex as her only surviving brother, Jack. She wasn’t as loud and pushy as her sister Marian. Beth was always the quiet, solid, dependable Beth. She had a hearing problem she didn’t acknowledge and spoke louder to compensate and sometime she wasn’t in the same conversation as the rest of us.
Beth loved San Francisco and she and her sisters had several homes there over the years and in the end they moved to the suburbs but still close enough to BART that they could travel to the City. Beth had her church group there and they were her friends throughout life. They often went on vacation together. Beth liked the guided tours and cruises with her friends. You wouldn’t find her on top of a camel like Hazel. She wasn’t one to camp out all over the United States. Vacations were places where you went in comfort with friends you have known for a long time. It was a place to be comfortable where guides would let you know what you were seeing and back home the pictures went into neatly labeled albums.
When I think of Beth I think of her and her lost love. She was engaged at the beginning of World War II to a man named Julius. He died in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. I remember a few years ago when I was still living in California her quietly talking about finding a book where his name was mentioned in the appendix as one of the soldiers who died. In her life he was her only love and she wore his ring for decades after his death.
Beth was a quiet, sweet, loving person and her main things in life were her family and her church. She was a life long Catholic and continued to go to church until the end. She doted on her nieces and nephews and their families. She had pictures of her family prominently displayed and lovingly showed visitors the latest additions and pictures of her family.
I don’t think there was a mean bone in Beth’s body. I never heard her bad mouth anyone. She was the true essence of a lady. She was the one who made my mother feel welcome when my Dad married her. She was the one who loved having holidays and family get-togethers at her place.
One of my cousins remarked when he heard about Beth’s dementia, “Well Beth never was the brightest crayon in the box.” Aunt Beth never pretended to be more then what she was. She was always true to herself. She may not have been the “brightest” crayon in the box but she was one of the most beautiful.
In her last couple of years Aunt Beth developed dementia and my brothers Reid and Jerry and his wife Debi became the care givers handling all of her financial affairs and giving her the love and support she needed to get by. She had a couple of hospitalizations but in spite of her wandering mind she was in good health. The heart attack that took her was very swift and she didn’t suffer.
Beth in pictures was almost always the one on the end. She wasn’t as adventurous as her sister Hazel. She wasn’t as complex as her only surviving brother, Jack. She wasn’t as loud and pushy as her sister Marian. Beth was always the quiet, solid, dependable Beth. She had a hearing problem she didn’t acknowledge and spoke louder to compensate and sometime she wasn’t in the same conversation as the rest of us.
Beth loved San Francisco and she and her sisters had several homes there over the years and in the end they moved to the suburbs but still close enough to BART that they could travel to the City. Beth had her church group there and they were her friends throughout life. They often went on vacation together. Beth liked the guided tours and cruises with her friends. You wouldn’t find her on top of a camel like Hazel. She wasn’t one to camp out all over the United States. Vacations were places where you went in comfort with friends you have known for a long time. It was a place to be comfortable where guides would let you know what you were seeing and back home the pictures went into neatly labeled albums.
When I think of Beth I think of her and her lost love. She was engaged at the beginning of World War II to a man named Julius. He died in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. I remember a few years ago when I was still living in California her quietly talking about finding a book where his name was mentioned in the appendix as one of the soldiers who died. In her life he was her only love and she wore his ring for decades after his death.
Beth was a quiet, sweet, loving person and her main things in life were her family and her church. She was a life long Catholic and continued to go to church until the end. She doted on her nieces and nephews and their families. She had pictures of her family prominently displayed and lovingly showed visitors the latest additions and pictures of her family.
I don’t think there was a mean bone in Beth’s body. I never heard her bad mouth anyone. She was the true essence of a lady. She was the one who made my mother feel welcome when my Dad married her. She was the one who loved having holidays and family get-togethers at her place.
One of my cousins remarked when he heard about Beth’s dementia, “Well Beth never was the brightest crayon in the box.” Aunt Beth never pretended to be more then what she was. She was always true to herself. She may not have been the “brightest” crayon in the box but she was one of the most beautiful.
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