The Aunts

My grandfather, Millard Fillmore Green was the oldest of the thirteen children in his family. He had five sisters who lived to adulthood and all of them married and had careers.

Two were school teachers in Manatee County Florida and later in life four of them ended up in Manatee County and lived next to each other in two houses.

Aunt Lydia was a teacher at the old Cortez school. My mother didn't meet my father until she was almost 25 but knew his family all her life. This photo is from a Cortez school reunion.

Only two of them had children and they pretty much outlived or divorced their husbands so for me growing up they all seemed like the typical old maid. I would visit with them when my Dad came with us to Cortez, Florida on vacation or Christmas break but I was never around them enough to ever figure out who was who.

They had a beauty parlor in one room of the house so often there would be some old woman with her head under the big hair dryer out on the porch.

After my parents moved to Bradenton in 1974, my Dad made a point of taking me by to see them anytime I was in town.

They were one of his regular stops on his weekly "visiting" trips. He was one of the people at church who drove around and visited people who were shut in and even though the aunts didn't go to church with him, he visited them each week when he was making his rounds.

He made sure I went with him when I was around but even then when I was in my early twenties, I couldn't tell who was who and I guess I was too lazy to really learn.

The last of the aunts, Lydia lived to be 100 years old and died in 1999. My Dad and I visited with her several times when she was living in a nursing home and we would usually pick her up for a drive in the car. This meant I would have to lift her from her wheel chair and put her in the car. She would always apologize to me and say how sorry that she was not able to stand. I finally learned her name.