Aunt Jane…………………….hum……………….multiple aunts (and uncles and each and every one of them unique (quirky)), but Aunt Jane…………………………
Ok, I’ll start at the beginning…………………..when around her, you knew you wouldn’t get away with anything and that she expected the same from you as she did her own kids, to some you’d think, ‘who wants to go to a house that is like being in my own house and disciplined or put to work while there’. However, to me, it meant that she loved us and had the same expectations of us, as she did her own kids. I’m not sure who said it, momma or A. Jane, but whoever did, the other readily agreed…..”I didn’t have 3 or 4 kids, I had 7!’ Again, I took this as unconditional love. We could drop in and out anytime and expect to be included in any and all things, chores, meals, “go clean the houseboat on the dock”, or ‘Suzanna/Totch are getting ready for a boat ride, quick go run jump in the boat to go with them’.
Moving on, as teenagers, we cousins would travel from house to house(state to state), and walk in expected (sometimes for weeks at a time) and unexpected and never be made to feel as an intruder. Random thought, we would be expected to clean the dinner table, wash up and invariably end up having a water fight with dish water (what joy it was when someone invented those pull out hoses in kitchen sinks so we could squirt thru inside open windows)….Neither A. Jane or momma complained and we now realize it was their way of getting their floors and counters washed….free labor.
As our adulthood progressed, our entrance was always met with her stopping whatever she was doing to come greet us and usually come sit on the ‘little velvet couch’ to just talk and catch up.
I do want to relay one story. Prior to daddy & momma passing, MT had given them a book to write their memories to certain questions. This book was found after momma died and one of the questions was; “ What games did you play as a child“, momma’s answer was, “one time as young girls at Rosecroft, Jane & I were playing cowboys and Indians and I was her horse, she tied me up to a tree and left me there, and there I stayed until I was missed at the evening dinner table!”
Now on to the last years, just 1 ½ years ago, I had found some old papers (all the way back to the civil war) of the Robinson side of our family. I was in Florida and visiting A. Jane, who at that time was curled up in her bed, unable to get around much. I began sharing my findings and was amazed at her knowledge of everything I had! Newspaper articles of our great grandfather’s doings, working in DC with the various government agencies, I’d relay pictures I found, and she’d tell me what and where they were before I had time to read the writing on the backs of them! She was on the mark for every one of them!
My last memory is just the best…………….going to see her in her care ‘facility’ in Eustis this past November. As I entered the dining hall and as I neared her, she threw her hands up and yelled, “It’s Mary Tod’s sister, this is Mary Tod’s sister…….later in the conversation, she would be explaining something to her ‘current boyfriend’, “you know this is Mary Tod’s sister, who’s with the Chesapeake Bay and does so much for the Bay….” We all laugh and this will be my new forever name amongst the 7 of us from now on! Maryland, Alice, Totch, Mary Tod, Suzanna and Preston's sister....Edna Wynne!
