Written By Ken Kinder
This story is about our Aunt Bea. She is my wife Janey’s older sister. She is the second born of six children. Three boy’s and three girls. Her name is actually Alta and not Bea. She got the name of Bea from her older brother Alpha Ray (16 months older) because he had a hard time saying baby, so he called her Be Be and the name stuck. I have known her and loved her so long that I have always considered her as my big sister. This is really important for me now that I have lost both of my big sisters.
How do you describe a person like aunt Bea? Well I find it very difficult, because she has so many facets to her personality. On the one hand she can be very strong and demanding, but then she comes back with a tender and giving side. One thing I do know, there is never a dull moment when Bea is around. Each time Janey gave birth to one of our children, Bea would come and stay with us. She would cook, clean, shop, take care of Janey and the children, and any other thing that needed to be done. I look back on those times and wonder, how our house survived aunt Bea. She is a very strong person, and I don’t think she takes that into consideration when she goes into action.
I remember one time when she needed some fresh air, so she opened the window, but in order to do this you have to pull up on the latch. Bea is standing there talking to me, holding this large cast latch in her hand, and she isn’t aware of the fact she has just broken part of the window. Another thing I could count on happening, was for the waste water plumbing to get blocked. She would always make a big stew, and in the process of peeling the vegetables the carrot peelings would plug the pipes. I would tell her to grind a little and flush a long time with water, but I think she figured as long as she was in a hurry, the plumbing drain would speed up for her.
Aunt Bea was always there for any member of her family. One time her sister Inez, took her old car in to have it painted. She left it at this shop, and a few days later she stopped by to check on the progress. She found to her dismay the paint shop had lost her car, so she called Bea. Inez was a little timid, and she would get Bea to fight her battles for her, so with big sister beside her they go back to the paint shop. The manager checks all his records, and he checks the storage area, and he still can’t locate Inez’s car. It was during this time that Bea was right in the middle of telling this guy how the cow ate the cabbage, that Inez realizes she is at the wrong paint shop. So does she come to Bea’s rescue? No she does like Richard Nixon and leaves her twisting in the wind. Eventually they find the car in the shop close by, retrieve the newly painted vehicle and go home. much to the pleasure of the paint shops.
One other time Bea swung into action, was when Mitchell was little and going to school. He kept coming home complaining about this big black boy hitting him on the head. So she decided to take him to school and see what was going on. The next day she loaded Mitchell in her(Caddiac) as he called it and away they went to school. Sure enough when they arrive, there stands this huge black man, who meets the bus and greets the students. He is the physical education instructor, and he pats each person on the head as they go by. Mitchell laughed, and Bea knew she had been taken. Mitchell got the ride to school in her car and that was what he was after all the time.
Bea and Joe have saved our bacon on so many occasions that we will never be able to repay all the kindness that they have shown us. We have four children and Aunt Bea was there as a surrogate mother for all of them. Bea and Joe didn’t have any children, so I guess it came natural for her to claim ours as her own. “SHE WAS OUR AUNTIE MAME”. Bea and Joe took our third child Tana home with them, for the first few months of her life, to give Janey a chance to regain her health. Both of them got so attached to her, I thought we were going to have to get a court order to get her back. Joe would speak a little Italian to her each day, and she started to say a few words back in Italian.
Bea lost her love Joe, twenty years ago and it hasn’t always been easy for her but she is a strong and determined person that invented the term womens lib. She constantly amazes me with her ability to run a business on her own, doing the hiring, firing, payroll, purchasing, scheduling, interviewing etc. But on the other hand, she can’t program a VCR, the clock in her car or anything electronic.