Great Aunt Jen was my most intriguing relative.
To begin with, her honorific offered prestige that vaguely implied aristocracy. Beyond that, I was enchanted by her preoccupation with the occult, mesmerized by her dressing table laden with elixirs and perfumes from Europe and the Orient, and awed by the sumptuous trappings of her Parkersburg, West Virginia home, from the heavy oak furniture groaning with precious porcelain figurines, to silver bowls of wax fruit perched on ornate doilies.
Most of all, Great Aunt Jen fascinated me because of the emotions a mere mention of her name aroused among family members. Today, she could be regarded as "liberated." Then, fingered by the stigma of divorce, she was our "black sheep."
I never knew her ex-husband, William W. Walker. Mother and Grandmother extolled him as a distinguished, dependable man of substance with extensive investments in oil, coal, and natural gas. They deemed Billy - as he liked to be called - to be worthy of retention on the family tree at any cost.
Great Aunt Jen thought otherwise. The bullet holes in her bedroom door were lasting mementos of the night she challenged his late arrival home. Contrary to her wild accusations, facts proved that he truly was attending a gathering at the Masonic Lodge.
Not one person sympathized with the temper tantrum that shattered Great Aunt Jen's marriage long before I was born. The shame of the divorce so devastated the women of our family that, for years, they discussed its dark implications in hushed voices that invariably ceased when I toddled innocently into their midst.
"She made her own bed, and now she must lie in it." Thus spake Grandmother, her elder sister, with terrifying regularity, causing me to conclude that Great Aunt Jen's reputation as a night owl and late sleeper was the penance she paid for firing her revolver.
Despite his unceremonious ejection from her life, Billy Walker remained a gentleman, providing Great Aunt Jen with all the necessities and frills to which she was accustomed. Having unlimited resources and no obligation to venture alone into the cruel world, she amused herself by correlating the Bible and astrological guides, thereby concocting her own religion. Her favorite pastime was poring over her relatives' horoscopes, underlining key passages, and forwarding crucial messages in what she prayed was ample time to preclude their making unwise decisions.
Each day blended into the next for Great Aunt Jen. She thought nothing of picking up her telephone at three in the morning to call and warn my parents about dark shadows about to cross their paths or lucky days on the horizon. Since she had no personal responsibilities, it never occurred to her that the shock of hearing the telephone ring at that hour might annoy - even terrify - others.
One such call during the wee hours alerted us to pick up a puppy arriving in the morning at the Pittsburgh B&O Railroad Station. "He's full-blooded," Great Aunt Jen assured my drowsy father. "His mother is a full-blooded Scottie and his father is a full-blooded bulldog." She pooh-poohed Father's patient explanation of why her understanding of canine nobility was flawed.
This gift, like others bestowed upon various relatives, seemed impulsive, but behind many was the expectation that the recipients would feel sufficiently indebted to invite Great Aunt Jen to move in with them during her waning years.
Her plot backfired. The men in our family who were related to her through marriage were adamant. They would not put up with her antics; their wives supported their spouses wholeheartedly, knowing that the lady's reputation as an enfant terrible had continued unabated from childhood into her sixties. Not even the prospect of inheriting a generous sum through the good deed of providing a home for a "grass widow" tempted them.
Father, congenial and easy-going, tolerated Aunt Jen far beyond his duty, but he insisted that she curtail her filthy habit of smoking during visits to our home. She cheerfully abided by his rules and in letters to others, she pronounced him "a swell fellow and the best man in the family."
Her annual visit to Pittsburgh followed a pattern. Upon arriving at the train station, she took a taxi to the William Penn, a swanky hotel near the city's cultural center. Once the bellhop delivered her luggage to her suite, she slathered her pampered skin with expensive creams and took to bed. There she luxuriated, free to smoke throughout as many nights as were required to complete her business.
Her business in Pittsburgh was limited to shopping at Joseph Horne's, the city's finest department store. There she replenished her considerable wardrobe and deposited her transformations - expensive swatches of real hair to disguise her creeping baldness - for routine cleaning and restoration. When at last her purchases and personal errands were resolved, a taxi would draw up before our house with Great Aunt Jen riding shotgun with the driver, her suitcases and packages stuffed ceiling-high in the back seat.
On one often-rehashed occasion, she waited until the driver had transferred her belongings to our threshold before lamenting that her change purse was empty. Not wishing to break a bill, she left Father to settle the fare, then placed her purse and one small package on the hall table and followed Mother and Grandmother into the kitchen to chat.
Only three years old, I knew none of the family stories about Great Aunt Jen's idiosyncrasies and the violent temper that emerged long before her beauty captivated Billy Walker. I was well aware, however, that she always brought me a gift each time she visited; I believed it to be inside the mysterious package.
Digging into the wrappings, I discovered no toys, but I did come upon an attractive mop wrapped loosely in perfumed tissues. Soft and wavy, it was sure to do a dandy job on the dust bunnies under my bed. By the time the ladies discovered my absence, I had crawled about the entire upstairs and was still on my knees wiping vigorously with my wonderful new cleaning aid.
Mother, the first upon the scene, blanched white. Grandmother, right behind, tried to block Great Aunt Jen from viewing me at work. Knowing that she always carried a small revolver, both women anticipated a wicked display of temper; they were unprepared for the uncontrollable laughter that erupted.
Between guffaws, tears streaming down her face, Great Aunt Jen blubbered, "If it looks like a mop to a child, it must look like a mop to everyone else."
From that day forth, Great Aunt Jen never wore a transformation; she simply disguised her thinning tresses with tighter curls. The mop scene that horrified Mother and Grandmother became the memory Jen held dearest to her heart. She described it to everyone who would listen as the most delectable bit of slapstick she had ever witnessed.
Despite her amusement at my antics, Great Aunt Jen's reputation for being quick to anger persisted throughout her life. She endeavored to counteract the impression her temper made on her victims by being generous to a fault.
"The trouble is, she's generous with the wrong things," lamented Grandmother, a widow, who lost her hearing during the great influenza epidemic of World War I. With no other place to call home, Grandmother rotated between her two married daughters, half a year with us in Pittsburgh and half with my Aunt Virginia, in Ritchie County, West Virginia.
Virginia's husband, Joe Goode, had inherited his family farm. Industrious and popular, he held the office of county sheriff for two terms, balancing community service with cultivation. As the Depression crept through the land, the farm ceased to prosper. When the annual tax of one-hundred dollars exceeded Joe Goode's bank account, Virginia urged him to ask Jen for a loan.
Great Aunt Jen, however, was a stickler for self-sufficiency, no matter the circumstances. She philosophized that Joe Goode could earn the funds he lacked by exerting more effort at raising crops. Having never worked a day in her life, she had no conception of the Depression's horrors. Her theories were based on popular turn-of-the-century stories about the virtues of pluck and luck and the assumption that success beams upon those who labor diligently. For her own part, she spent her alimony as if Billy Walker's funds were bottomless.
Once the farm was beyond redemption and the Goode family moved to a tiny house in the nearby village, Great Aunt Jen reluctantly admitted that she could have been their salvation in that time of need. To cleanse her conscience, she began shipping them cartons of assorted items, certain that this largesse would make amends. The contents of the boxes, many items gathered from her own shelves, revealed her ignorance of man's basic needs. Aunt Virginia, appreciative of the humor in the situation, laughed uproariously at each donation.
There were always several jars of Mum deodorant, bottles of Jergens Lotion (the secret behind Jen's baby-soft complexion), jars of Heinz pickles, thick woolen stockings, knitted caps ("the kind worn by people in asylums," Aunt Virginia giggled), cans of anchovies and sardines, fingernail polish remover, movie star magazines, tear sheets from horoscope books, and a miniature Bible.
The magazines, books, and Bible contained many passages that were illegible because Great Aunt Jen had underlined them in ink for emphasis; these, she instructed, were to be memorized. Others were obliterated by her cryptic penmanship. When carefully deciphered, each jotted note was discovered to emphasize the importance of the underlined message that was impossible to read. Nobody had the courage to tell her that her bizarre offerings were essentially useless in solving the family's financial problems. Once, during an impromptu reunion, she prattled on about all she had done for "the unfortunate Goode family," unaware that everyone present was fighting to maintain a straight face
Great Aunt Jen's ignorance about the realities of the Depression led to her own downfall. As Billy Walker's investments dried up, so did her income, which was based on the returns of his extensive holdings. In time, she had only her home, her jewels, and an impressive car to drive wherever and whenever she wished.
On one of her overnight jaunts, she motored to the Goodes' home, unaware that Billy Walker had dropped dead from a heart attack earlier in the day. As was her custom, she parked the car in the only garage in town and plunked a generous quarter tip into the proprietor's palm. The following day, while she prepared to leave for home, the county sheriff padlocked the garage. The car, part of the deceased's estate, was impounded to satisfy his debts. Despite her threats and screams that neighbors reported were heard from one end of town to the other, the sheriff refused to give in. He was, he explained, merely following orders of the Wood County judge.
The limousine remained locked in the garage for several years until the estate was settled. During that time, local farmers often stopped by to ogle the "machine" that rivaled anything sported in a Hollywood movie. In the end, it was sold to a classic car enthusiast. Aunt Jen received none of the proceeds.
Great Aunt Jen's abrupt financial decline alarmed the family members, not because they had craved an inheritance, but for fear that she would move in with them. The implications of living with a chain-smoking night owl brought terror to Mother, her favorite niece, and deep concern about the dangers involved, among them house fires and accidental shootings. I was the only one who would have welcomed Jen with open arms, attracted by her free spirit and our mutual love of dogs.
When alternatives failed, she took as a companion her niece Flora, also divorced from a "fine man." The two disgruntled women lived together for many years, huddled against the world and mounting financial problems, until Flora soothed her own situation by committing Great Aunt Jen to the county home. There she died, penniless, an unspeakable end for the former society matron who had no patience with people headed for the Poor House.
