A very special person in my life when I was a child was Aunt Chad (Willie Chaddick McArthur Sinclair, b. 1878, d. 1969). She was about two years younger than my father (Papa), her brother. She lived next door to us in Meridian, Mississippi. A part of the Sinclair home was the old John Gordon McArthur home(my grandfather) , where my Papa was born, as well as the other children, as far as I know. I have never known a person with more patience with children. I must have been a terrible pest to her, as I spent a lot of time at Aunt Chad’s. One of the big attractions for me was her old mechanical Victrola with its 78 rpm records. I could play the records for hours and imagine that the voices I heard were from people who were actually inside the Victrola cabinet. I must have scratched many of her records and broken more than one, but I never heard a complaint out of Aunt Chad. I remember one record which I liked in particular, a comedy skit. Well, one day I broke it and confessed to Aunt Chad my carelessness. Her response was not anger, but something to this effect, “That’s all right. It was old anyway.” Wow! How a record collector would like to have one of those old records today! At my insistence, she did admit that it was a good record. This was one of my first lessons in forgiveness. Other records I enjoyed were “The Doll Dance,” “Nola,” “Flapperette,” “Ramona,” “Indian Love Call,” and a metal disk recording of my brother Stainton’s college quartet.
I always thought of Aunt Chad as a solid type person, not one that gave children a lot of physical affection, but one who was dependable, always available, always ready to share what she had. The Sinclair home had many things we didn’t have in our home. One was a copy of the “Lincoln Library,” a kind of one-volume encyclopedia which I used many time in preparing my school work. One reason I thought of Aunt Chad as solid was that she stood straight and wore a corset with steel staves. When I hugged her, I could feel her solidness.
Aunt Chad filled a special need in my life. Mama was busy running the house and garden for a family of nine children and a crippled husband. She didn’t have much time to spend with me individually. Mama must have regretted this because once she almost complained, “Aunt Chad doesn’t work as hard as I do.” It was true that Aunt Chad didn’t carry the load that Mama carried. Most of the time when I was growing up, Aunt Chad had a servant to help and sent the laundry out to a black family for washing.
For years, even when she was nearly 90 years of age, Aunt Chad entertained us by playing on the piano, ” a lively piece she had learned as a child from a sheet of music used as a commercial on a medicine show. How we loved to hear her play and laugh her very special laugh.
Aunt Chad suffered greatly through the loss of two children, one in infancy, and the unfaithfulness of her husband at a time when divorce was considered unthinkable. Through it all, however, she kept her deep faith in God and remained a tower of strength.
I really love the picture of Aunt Chad. It's almost as I remember her.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember Aunt Chad as a large woman and would not have recognized her from the picture. Of course she was surely in her late eighties when I knew her. I do remember loving to go to her house and watching with amazement as she played the Antiseptic March. She seemed ancient to me, with her long yellow-white hair in braids pinned across her head. I also remember joining my sister in rummaging through an out-building in her back yard and finding tiny clay pots used for seedlings in the nursery. ( I didn't realize until you wrote about John Gordon that he was the one who had the nursery.) Ever patient, Aunt Chad allowed us to keep some of the pots. We were thrilled! I also remember the ruins of a swimming pool in her back yard and wonder if you remember a pool being there.
ReplyDeleteBeth Runnels wrote "My two cents on this: Over the years as church organist, I sat behind the ministers during their sermons and often looked down at his shoes at some point during the service. After observing two or three, I became aware of the fact that those with neatly polished shoes delivered good sermons but those with unkempt shoes failed miserably in their delivery and content. Somehow the two things did go hand in hand."
ReplyDeleteThough, I doubt my rendition will ever reach the level of liveliness that Aunt Chad gave it, I have taken up the challenge of learning "Dr. Tichenor's Antiseptic March." Perhaps others will as well, and we can pass it on to the next generation, or just be satisfied to revel in our memories.
ReplyDeleteFor all of the readers of Dad's blog, we have determined that the sheet music for "Dr. Tichenor's Antiseptic March" is not the same music that we remember Aunt Chad playing, nor the music that Dad has recorded from 1959 of Aunt Chad playing the piano. So now, we have to find a way to identify the real name of the music and try to find a copy of it. Unless we have someone in the family who is very good at writing down music from what they hear.
ReplyDelete