Josie Matilda, my Aunt Jo, was born in 1910. My grandmother, her sister, was born four years later. They were as close as close could be and polar opposites. This is probably why I loved her so much. I had a quiet but quick-tempered grandmother. I had a loud-mouth yet even keeled aunt. I loved to listen to her stories, which she told with wit and her own version of "creative liberties." I grew up with the best of both worlds.
Aunt Jo is blamed for my grandmother's quick-temper. She was the one who told my grandmother how it was she came into the world. As the story goes, a neighbor was about to have her own baby and the doctor drove by in a fancy car. Aunt Jo explained that the doctor brought the babies to their mothers in that fancy car. All babies, except her. Aunt Jo told her that everyone of her brothers and sisters had come to live there in a car a lot like the one that just drove by, but "an old buzzard puked you up by the hen house and Momma felt sorry for you and let you stay." That broke my grandmother's heart and, as the family story goes, she was never the same again.
I visited her every chance I could. No matter the time of day, she always told me it was time to feed the chickens and off we would go. She knew I didn't like chickens, the only domesticated animal I will never keep as a pet, and I especially didn't like her chickens. They were the very ones that attacked me. They chased me through the yard, overtook me, and tried to kill me. I still have the scars on my legs. I was only five, but remember like I am still having alcohol poured all over my arms and legs after the assault.
Feeding the chickens was Aunt Jo's way of being alone with me. Her house was always full of family, friends and neighbors. Of course her house was full - she had seven sons. She had seven grandsons before she got a granddaughter. I could count up all of her grandkids, great-grandkids, and great-great grandkids, but I don't have the time. It would take me days to figure it all it. It is suffice to say there are a bunch of them. I know each one by name and each have a special spot in my heart. They have to - they are my Aunt Jo's kids.
She lived in an old farm house with my uncle. He would have been my uncle even if they weren't married. My grandmother and Aunt Jo married brothers. "Only in the south," I have been told. That makes my mom and all of Aunt Jo's boys double cousins. They had lived in that house since they got married in 1925. My aunt was only fifteen when she got married. How she managed a house, a husband and three boys before the age of twenty is beyond me.
Aunt Jo was a real firecracker, a southern spit-fire. She was sweetest little lady with that bun on the top of her head, yet she told it like is was. And, the way she thought it should be. Never lacking for an opinion, she made her thoughts and feelings known. I never grow tired of hearing her stories as well as the stories about her. Those stories are never boring and always positive.
It was one of those times she wanted me to feed the chickens with her when she told me about the day my great-grandmother (Granny Beth) was going to shoot my grandfather. My grandmother had been told she couldn't be "courted by one of them Riley boys." She already had one for a son-in-law and she didn't like him. Despite my great-grandmother's grip on her children, love will find a way. My grandfather showed up one day with flowers and a second-hand ring; it was his intention to marry my grandmother. Granny Beth was waiting for him on the front porch. She had her shotgun. My grandmother screamed and everyone came running. Granny Beth fired one shot, way off the mark, to scare him off. Aunt Jo loved my grandfather and didn't want him dead. She ran between Granny Beth and my grandfather. Granny Beth told her to move and she did, just not where she was suppose to have moved. She stood next to Granny Dean and stuck her finger in the barrel of the shotgun. My grandmother grabbed a few things and ran off with "one of them Riley boys." They got married that same day, two counties over, with the forged signature of Granny Beth.
Not only was Aunt Jo a brave soul, she also had a mischievous streak. Lots of my cousins and I were in her kitchen eating whole hot peppers from her garden and drinking Kool-Aid. My eyes watered and my tongue burned, but I had to eat just as many as the rest. She told me to get an ice tray out of the freezer. I did so, without even thinking what she might be up to.
"Stick your tongue to this," she said, holding the metal ice tray. "This will cool your tongue off."
Wanting to cool my tongue off, I eagerly took her up on her kind offer. Little did I know that it would not just cool my tongue, but almost take it off. I tried to pull my tongue away, but it was stuck. The cold burned my tongue even more than the hot peppers did. It seemed like I walked around Aunt Jo's kitchen for hours before she finally poured a little water on the ice tray to free my tongue. I can still her cackling as I ran to the bathroom to see how much of my tongue I had left. Everyone laughed, but no one as loudly as she did.
Aunt Jo loved to wear red shoes. Nobody knows why. She had shoes in every shade of red you can imagine. With the exception of funerals, Aunt Jo wore red shoes everywhere she went. I can count on one hand with fingers left over how many times I saw her without red shoes on. It was one of her many quirks.
She was so proud of all of her boys. Despite a few honest mishaps, they were good boys. The last time I saw her, she was in a nursing home. Alzheimer's disease had taken her most of her memories. She didn't know who I was, but she did remember one thing. "I got seven boys," she proceeded to name each one in the order they were born. "They are good boys, not one of them spent a day in the penitentiary." She said this over and over again. I brought her a pair of house shoes, the brightest shade of red I could find. "These are mighty fine," she told me as she put them on.
I was pregnant at the time of that visit. I told her about the baby, knowing she would probably never see her great-great niece or nephew.
"This is Hoss's great-grandbaby," I explained as I put her hand on my still flat tummy. I had found out I was pregnant less than a week before our visit.
"Hoss?" She thought for a moment. "I love that man. He's my sister's husband." Despite that dreadful disease, her eyes twinkled at the thought someone might get the wrong idea about her and her brother-in-law. "My Momma almost shot him one day. Did you hear about that?"
"Tell me what happened." I smiled, knowing this would be the last time I would hear her tell this story.
"He came callin' on my sister, the one the buzzard puke up"
I paid close attention to what she said. I tried to memorize every word. I watched her face change as she went back in time to that day so long ago.
"They got married anyway. And, now" she paused, thinking of what to say next. For a brief moment she remembered me. "You're their granddaughter, the one the chickens got down."
I felt a tear trickle down my cheek. She didn't notice it and she continued.
"Your having a baby. They told me that months ago." She put her hand on my stomach. "The world needs another Hoss. Sure hope that little one takes after me and him."
She does. My little Hoss is very much like her great-grandfather and her great-great Aunt Jo. She is smart, funny, and tells it like it is. And, yes, she can tell a story.