OMG, great-great aunt Betty was a piece of work. She and her older sister, my great-grandma Emma, were only two years apart in age but worlds apart in personality. Emma was a farm girl by birth and stayed that way her whole life. She had a face like a morel mushroom but made the best homemade noodles I have ever tasted. Betty, on the other hand, got her ass off of that farm as fast as she could. She was an early suffragette. With enough attitude to cut through titanium like it was warm butter on a hot day. Betty took no shit whatsoever. Her and Emma were night and day. As I recall, they hated each other. Rather openly at most encounters as I remember.
Betty put herself through trade school and became a "typewriter". That's apparently what they called secretary's back then. She ended up becoming a private secretary to someone in the Illinois state government and made a small fortune in the process. Betty dressed in designer clothes, wore the most amazing hats I have ever seen and bought herself a new Buick every two years. She also owned her own home which she "shared" with her "roommate" for decades. BTW, her roommate's name was Lillian. Together they traveled extensively, kept at least one beauty shop happily in business for decades, wore acres of silk and managed to send all of a Buick dealers kids through college. She smelled like an Avon Lady and smoked Lucky Strikes like a fiend, both much to Emma's distain.
I remember the last time I saw Betty. We were all at great-grandma Emma and great-grandpa Henry's farm for a family reunion one summer. I was out in the yard throwing apples at the sheep when I watched a truly enormous car turn off of the hard road, come down the gravel road and turn up into Emma and Henry's driveway. Oh my, Betty had arrived!!! In her brand new 1959 Buick Invicta convertable. It was two-tone cobalt and cream with a matching two-tone leather interior. It was the size of a battleship and had fins on the back that could do some serious damage to any living thing that was stupid enough to get in the way of them. Betty flowed out of that car like a Mozart sonata. Awash in matching cobalt and cream with a hat that rivaled the rings of Saturn. Oh yeah, Betty had definitely arrived!!! She fired up a cigarette and as she walked past me she asked if I had managed to hit any of Emma's sheep yet. I told her only two so far. She said "You keep trying honey, you can only get better with practice." She was like having my very own personal steel magnolia on tap. I loved her with all of my heart.
Sadly, a little over a year later Betty was gone. She died in her sleep while her and Lillian were vacationing in New York City the next summer. She was 68 and spry and cantankerous to the very end. She left $100,000 to several of her favorite causes and everything else to Lillian. The house, the stocks, the bonds, tons of cash and her beloved Buick Invicta. Needless to say great-grandma Emma was not amused at that. To say that she had a full blown bat shit crazy melt down would be an understatement by any stretch. Verbally, she deteriorated into a drunken long shore man. That was the only time I ever heard Emma cuss. And boy did she cuss. She called Betty everything in the book. And then she called Lillian everything in the second volume. How dare this, how dare that, how dare she, how dare you, what the $%*&@(! and on and on. It was not a pretty funeral I must say. Quite typical for a funeral in my family though. But just not a pretty sight in general. At the grave sight she even called Lillian "a dirty bitch from Hell"! As a 7-year old I was truly impressed. Taken back a bit but still truly impressed. I had no idea Emma had it in her. And all of this coming out of a 5-foot 2-inch morel. And solely because Betty didn't have the decency to leave her anything!!! Yeah, we Colee's are strange. Very, VERY strange. Think I hate you with all of my heart but your sorry ass better leave me something once you die and you get the picture...
I have never let great-great aunt Betty leave my memory. She was a force to be reckoned with. Oh hell, she was a tsunami of lipstick, silk, heels and hats. And Buick's. To this day, every time I see some sheep I want to toss apples at them and start screaming "Hey, these are from Betty!!!". Trust me, I really do. Oh fuck 'em, they're just sheep...
I think I may have spent most my life channeling her... How else could I have become this much of a rancid old queen??? Betty, you taught me well and I thank you more than you can possibly imagine!!!
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