Great Great Aunt Helen

My grandmother’s maternal aunt, Helen Marie Merrill, was born in 1893. She lived to be 98. When she married Lee Roy Short, who was five years her junior, she was almost 30. Most of what I know of her is from firsthand experience, which I will get to in a moment, but I would dearly love to track down the one story about her that completely fascinates me.

All I can imagine of her two-year adventure to Hawaii with Roy is that it must have been a wild one indeed. They arrived by ship on September 11, 1923, and returned to the states on August 25, 1925. During their time there, so I was told, Roy worked for “the phone company.” None of my research has yielded any sort of confirmation; there were no documents offering further explanation or enlightenment among the many saved papers I’ve come across over the years; and, except for now toying with the idea of going to Hawaii to research in newspaper archives and libraries, I’m at a bit of a loss to add substance to this part of her story. But, I haven’t given up on it because looking at photos of Hawaii from over 30 years before it became a state, gives me all kinds of scope for the imagination.

Even without the Hawaiian backstory, Helen was a woman of substance, and formidable to boot. My memory of her begins when I was about six years old. She was a crotchety old thing—70 years old—an age that is rapidly becoming almost my own. Aunt Helen didn’t exactly scare me, but she sure wasn’t much interested in kids. Having never had children herself (I suspect by choice) I suppose she feared that at any moment I might make the house fall down around her. Nevertheless, she was civil enough most of the time and took the time to notice my delight with two porcelain figures she’d bought during a side trip to Japan. The Lefton China Company crafted the figurines after Thomas Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy, and Thomas Lawrence’s Pinkie. When Aunt Helen died, her will stated that the figurines are to be given to my great great grand niece, Debra Jo, who spent hours admiring them. They sit in my home in a place of reverence to this day, which is why I think of Aunt Helen so often.

Helen is a hard one to forget in any case. On one particular visit, she had just finished baking some sugar cookies, which she’d then stored between sheets of wax paper in a tin box. As I stared at the porcelain figures in her curio cabinet, she stomped into the kitchen, grabbed the box off the top of the refrigerator, and stomped back to where I was sitting. She stood towering over me, though she was hardly more than 5' 2", took the lid off the box, shoved the box under my nose, and gruffly asked, “Want a cookie?” I looked wide-eyed up at her and in a squeaky mouse of a singsong voice replied shyly, “I don’t care.” She pulled the box away from me and responded huffily, “Well, I don’t care either.” With that, she slapped the lid back on and put the box back on top of the refrigerator. I learned in that moment, sans lecture or interpretation, that there are only two acceptable answers to many questions. Ever since, I have definitively answered either “Yes,” or “No.”

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2018

Aunt Helen in 1945

The Helper

About a year ago, I was faced with making a career decision that, psychologically speaking, I was not quite prepared to make. Fortunately, I had the financial resources available that allowed me to make the decision fairly quickly and, except for that psychological part, painlessly. I started my own business as a software consultant.

Pretty much all of my clients are located on either the West Coast or East Coast with a couple local exceptions. But in all cases, I can work from anywhere with the aid of a wifi connection. There is the occasional conference call that must be scheduled during the standard work day, but my hours are flexible to the point that I can schedule my work around my life.

Consequently, my life has changed radically since that difficult decision at the beginning of last summer. My new job flexibility has allowed me to travel all over the place including to Singapore and Dubai. But of late, I’ve been spending most of my non-consulting time working in another way—as a helper to friends and family members in need of an extra pair of hands.

As I write this I am on a flight back to Nashville after a month’s absence. On the first leg of my journey, I flew to Philadelphia to attend my son-in-law’s graduation from UPenn Law. I spent several days helping him and my daughter pack up their apartment for their upcoming move back to Boston. Originally, I was to then fly to Florida for a girlfriend weekend and Chris and Ariel were to head up to Boston to close on the purchase of their first home. Next, I was to fly back to Philly to facilitate with the movers, and drive with them and the cats up to Boston where I would then assist with the movers on the other end before flying back to Nashville. I was to be away from home for two weeks. But, as often happens with house purchases, the close date moved by a week while some title search issues got resolved, so it looked like I’d be flying back to Nashville from Florida instead, and Ariel and Chris would be on their own to sort out the move.

While in Florida, however, my sister received word that she finally had a close date on the sale of her home in northern Illinois. The house had been on the market for over two years so the news was worthy of celebration. The only problem was that it was still full of stuff that needed to be packed up or given away. As my mind took a quick inventory of what I remembered would be required of her during the week she was giving herself to get everything done, I couldn’t imagine how she was going to pull it off. I offered to fly up with her and help her out. We spent the week working six- and eight-hour days in order to accomplish it all. But accomplish it we did. The sale was finalized this past week. 

Since I was in full packing and helping mode at this point, I told Ariel and Chris that I might as well fly back to Philly to see the original plan through, albeit a week later in the calendar. The biggest change was that the altered schedule had thrown several more obstacles into their path making it extremely difficult for them to get back to Philly, which would further postpone the arrival of their belongings. Not daunted by the task, I said I’d just handle everything on my own including packing a rental car with the essentials that would make living in their new house easier while awaiting the movers. Besides managing the movers, I would then also break down their bed, wrap the mattress, take down the shower curtain, and leave the keys behind in the apartment before making the drive up. My daughter is very organized so there was a spreadsheet outlining the many other jobs involved.

The movers took far longer than I think they should have but, again, it’s sort of the way this stuff goes, and I didn’t get started until 4:30 in the afternoon—a disastrous time of day to begin a trip from Philly to Boston. It took almost seven agonizing hours, two of which were in the dark. But, I made it.

I told Ariel and Chris that I could stay five days during which time I could probably get two projects done. They chose painting their kitchen (dark red to soft grey) and bedroom (caramel with a metallic gold stripe up near the ceiling to soft grey). Both required a Kilz coat first, and many trips to Home Depot and Lowe’s. I now am very familiar with Routes 27, 30, 90, and Speen Street, and their darling new town, Natick Center. I was supposed to manage the arrival of a piano—the Story & Clark spinet given to me on my sixteenth birthday—but it didn’t arrive as scheduled (another one of those things that happens), so they did have to work out the details of getting it nice and cozy in its new spot in their living room.

I have paint under my nails, and except for being in desperate need of a manicure and crazy to put on some clothes I haven’t seen in 30 days, I am only a little tired. 

Maybe I should think about opening a side business and actually get paid to do this stuff. Hmmmm.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2018