Thursday, April 17, 2008

My afghans

I've had these afghans for several years now. The one on the back of the couch pretty much stays there. The other one is often on my lap on winter evenings, with my dog, Sadie, curled up on top of it.

My mom's older sister, my Aunt Ruby, made the afghans for me; and because I see them daily, hardly a day goes by that I don't think of Aunt Ruby.

I was looking on my computer for pictures of her, and realized I haven't scanned any of the later photos that were taken... her fiftieth anniversary picture, for instance. I have them upstairs, but it seems I only scan the really old shots of family members.



Aunt Ruby is the tallest one in this picture. The girl on the left is my mother. The boys are in front. Yes, the baby on the left is a boy. Back then, boys wore dresses until they were out of diapers. It made for easier diaper-changing.



This is one of my favorite old photos. Piggies and all.

Aunt Ruby and Uncle Lloyd only had the one child, Gerald, who survived. They had a daughter who died in infancy. Back then, almost every woman had at least one baby that died.


This is the Aunt Ruby I remember best. (It seemed like, in the 50's, half the pictures we took of people sitting down made their legs look huge; or was that just my family?)

Aunt Ruby and Uncle Lloyd became winter Texans in their later years, and they had a lot to do with influencing my sister and her husband to try it out. My sister, as my regular readers know, is still a snowbird.

For the life of me, I can't recall the year Aunt Ruby died. I do know that my daddy died in 1987, and that was the year she was diagnosed with cancer. She lived several more years, still knitting afghans and playing cards (pitch) every chance she got until finally she had to go into a nursing home.

I hope she can somehow look down and see how much I enjoy my afghans.
I'm so blessed to have such wonderful memories of aunts and uncles.

And to have my afghans as a daily reminder that I had an aunt who loved me.

4 comments:

  1. I have many things in my living room that have memories like that. Thing you've inspired a future post.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is a sad yet warm post.

    The love and memory are felt most when they leave somthing special for us to remember them by, long after they have gone.

    Beautiful post. Thank you for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous12:25 PM

    What a wonderful story. Sounds like my Aunt Mary to a T, but her game was canasa. She made afghans for all 8 of my brothers and sisters and I. Spent many of summer evenings at the lake playing cards.laughing and talking. What wonderful and simple times they was.

    KC

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous5:27 AM

    What a sweet post! As a knitter who hesitantly makes blankets and other things for people, it's nice to hear a story of appreciation. The last blanket I knit didn't even get a thank you!

    ReplyDelete

I love comments!