Aunt Goldie

You know how folks speculate about having some long, lost rich uncle who bequeaths like a million dollars in their will to them? Well, for me, it was my Great, Great Aunt Goldie. She was my grandfather's aunt who moved to California during the 1930's and married well. She was the youngest sister to my great grandfather....their family hailed from the Rochester area.



California. Not a likely place for a Hoosier to end up, but some do. And some do very well. Aunt Goldie was one of those. She and her husband owned a hospital in Oceanside and from my understanding, whenever they drove back to Indiana...along Route 66 I'm sure....as it's been relayed to me, they always drove the best cars and wore the latest styles. Imagine that showing up on the family farm.

I vaguely remember visiting her once when we traveled to California. I remember she lived on the ocean, on a point, in a grand old Victorian-of course everything seems bigger when you're 5. I remember a couple of dogs following us down to the beach to collect shells. That's about it until she made one last trip back to Indiana at 96 years old. She died two years later. I hope I inherited those genes.

Aunt Goldie and Gramps in 1991

Her last trip "home", funny saying that since she lived in Oceanside for 60 years of her life, we had one last great reunion of all the extended family in Rochester. Imagine meeting your eighty year old grandfather's extended family. It was a houseful. They had one son, who retired to a ranch in Sheridan, Wyoming. Shoot, there goes the inheritance.