Uncle Ed.

 

I remember the night Uncle Ed died. It was the 14th of March, a Friday night. I was 12 1/2 yrs. old.  I was at aunt Nellie and uncle Ed's, which was common for me, watching television.  I'm not sure if we had a tv at home yet, we got our first tv when I was around 12, but aunt Nellie and uncle Ed had had one for a few years and I was over to their house frequently, which was only a block or so from our house.  It was probably shortly after supper that Mary Ann Lavigne Marney called to ask if uncle Ed could drive down to Newberry's and pick her up and drive her home.  Mary Ann's Husband, Tim Marney, was aunt Nellie's great nephew.  I don't know the particulars but enough to say that this would not have been uncommon.

Aunt Nellie and I stayed and were watching TV and uncle Ed left in their Packard to go get Maryann.  It doesn't seem like it was very long before we heard the Packard pull in the driveway.  Shortly, Mary Ann came to the door without Uncle Ed.  Mary Ann was visibly shaken and teary when she said, when asked, to Aunt Nellie that he was in the car and she thought he was dead.  She said she had found him slumped over the wheel when she came out of Newberry's and not sure what to do, drove him home.  The details of what happened next elude me but someone drove the car with uncle Ed and aunt Nellie to the hospital and there he was pronounced dead.

I ran home to tell mom and dad.  Dad wasn't home from work yet so I told mom.  Shortly thereafter we heard dad drive his oil delivery truck to our garage one house over and mom told me to go over and tell him when he got out of the truck.  To this day I don't know why she sent me to tell him instead of waiting 'til he came in the house.  But just as well, because when I got to the driver's side of the truck and dad was just opening the door he asked what was up  and I burst out that uncle Ed had died. He burst outta that truck quicker than a lightening bolt and grabbed me roughly by the shirt and yelled at me to stop horsing around, "you're not funny," he shouted. Quivering in my sneaks, thinking I would pee my pants, I stuttered; "no, really dad, I'm telling the truth".  After that he ran to the house so fast that I couldn't keep up.

Some back ground;  Aunt Nellie was my Dad's father's sister.  She and uncle Ed had no children.  Dad's mother died when he was 3 years old and his dad died when he was 13. After his father's funeral, dad went to live with an older brother in Panama 'til he was 16 then came back to Rochester to stay with an older sister.  When  he was 17 he came to live with aunt Nellie and uncle Ed until he joined the Army Aircorps in WWII.

So, for me, Great aunt Nellie and uncle Ed were, for all intents and purposes, my surrogate grandparents for all of my growing up years and acted as such.

Where does Mary Ann fit into this scheme of things?  Well, One of aunt Nellie's sisters, Josie, who just happened to live directly across the street, with her son Buck, from mom, dad and myself , had a grand son named Timothy Marney.  Timmy was the son of Josie's daughter who lived two houses down from us; about half way between us and aunt Nellie.( there was a plethora of relatives in our neighborhood.  So much so that for most of my growing up years I thought I was related to everybody in our city.) Anyway, Timmy, My 2nd cousin, married Mary Ann and that's how she fits in.