Auntie Lou, my mom's younger sister, married my dad's older brother when I was two years old. In this photo, taken at our house, I am only about one year old, so it was shortly before she graduated from Rush City High School in the class of '59.
Auntie was a boon to the Marty family, which was a pretty serious bunch. She was not only smart, talented, and skilled, but funny, too. She was cool.
That Noble accordion came in very handy when the two brothers and two sisters sang quartet at church and around the community for various functions. Mom played chords on a lap-slide guitar (a modified Beltone) and they sounded great.
Auntie Lou and Uncle Gaylon drove a series of Pontiacs and furnished them with stuffed animals—the one I remember was Reddy Fox. She loved real dogs and took over the role of mistress to those that protected the farm, beginning with a puppy named Lassie in 1962. She loved cartoons and quoted her favorite characters with perfect timing. When I outgrew the toddler nickname Uncle gave me, she started calling me Hannah Banana just because it made no sense and it made me smile.
She kept tabs on fashion, loved accessories, and teamed up with my mom to give us all Toni permanents, a messy, smelly, painful kitchen experience that I hated.
"Hurts to be beautiful!" Auntie remarked. She knew what she was talking about, too—she had overcome a congenital hip condition to live a life that included spike heels.
Auntie was a working girl at the Rush City Hospital, a switchboard and office job she held for most of the 1960s, so she became a working mom who always knew what was going on in town. Her experience receiving the sick and wounded who walked in the front doors of a rural hospital made her fearless. She also followed the rules of professional conduct and didn't talk about things until they were public, which added to her wise and steely reputation.
She and mom both drove tractors for their dad when they were teenagers, but Auntie Lou never stopped, and she kept up on the latest models of John Deeres (the green of her youth) as well as International Harvesters (the red of the Marty fleet). After her second baby was born and my mother turned the farm books over, Auntie took on a bigger role in managing the farm and keeping it running.
Whatever your parents are like, it's a gift to have alternative role models so you know there are other possibilities. My mother was constantly in motion, a flurry of lists and activity, who loved to entertain and loathed causing discomfort. Auntie proved you didn't have to operate at high speed, respect tradition, or maintain everyone's comfort to contribute and have fun. She administered first-aid to my brothers and me when my mother's nerves failed her and ruled on whether a trip to the hospital was required (almost never). She didn't apologize for sitting down to watch TV. She had no qualms about saying no or locking her door when my brothers and I got old enough to think we could wander into her house.
"What's up, Doc?" she'd say when she answered the door.
I could see that Auntie was a sharp observer who wasn't afraid to speak her mind or state the obvious when no one else would.
"What a crock," she'd comment dryly, or, "Whatever works."
She expected us all to use our brains, keep a sense of humor, and fear only God.
Through the 1970s, while Mom kept an eye out for the newest thing, Auntie Lou developed her eye for antiques. Mom drove to the Cities to shop and see plays with me when I was in college, while Auntie gladly accompanied Uncle to the northern woods and Canada to fish and camp. Auntie took over the family recipe for Swedish potato sausage when her mother died, preserved practices too time-consuming for the rest of us, and became a master scrapbooker.
These days, the sisters still talk to each other almost every day. They accompany each other to appointments and on occasional day trips. Together, they have the bases covered.
Auntie never gave up the accordion, either. After the Noble, she had a Morbidoni, then a Titano, now a Stanelli. In our city living room are copies of her sheet music—Patrick is learning to play fiddle parts so he can keep up with her when we visit. She's still cool.
Photo: Lorraine Anderson and baby Gayla Marty in the Marty living room, winter 1959, by Gordon Marty. Ektachrome.
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