A Toast to a Good Woman

My Aunt Tootsie passed away on Sunday at 101 years old. ONE HUNDRED ONE YEARS OLD.

She was my mother's oldest sibling by 13 years. She was also the oldest child in the family of 3 girls and 2 boys.

She was born in Yonkers NY in January of 1909 about 6 years after her parents were married and along with her 2 brothers and one sister also born there moved from Yonkers to East Hampton Mass, to New Britain Conn (where my mother was born) to finally Wallingford Conn. Thanks to my grandfather's mother with her loan of a down payment, they settled into a newly built house where Aunt Tootsie resided until the late 1980s.

She left school around 14 years old and worked as a housekeeper for the headmaster or at one of the houses at Choate School in town. Eventually she found her way to Wallace Silversmith where she worked for over 50 years. I have distinct memories of my mother, sisters and I sitting in our car parked at the curb (1963 Chrysler New Yorker that Aunt Tootsie gave us) on a Friday evening waiting for Aunt Tootsie to get out of work so we could go grocery shopping and then either to the Farm Shop or back to her house for dinner. Sunday mornings after my family went to church, we'd pick up the newspapers (only one was delivered - we read 3 different ones every day), we would stop by her house and drop off her newspaper to her. To this day I could probably drive the route to her house with my eyes closed.

She was unlucky in love. Rumor had it the love of her life in the 20s got another girl pregnant and had to marry her. She dated her first husband, Lester, for years but both were taking care of their mothers. They finally got married in 1960 but Lester died of a heart attack 3 years later. She married again in 1978 but he died only 8 months later. I still remember that phone call to my mother. She never married again but for an old lady she always had a boy friend!

She was 75 years old when my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. My Aunt Tootsie, along with my Auntie Edna from my father's side of the family, stepped in to help. Every weekday for two months Auntie Edna picked up Aunt Tootsie and they came to our house to take care of my mother so my father and I could go to work without worry. They cooked and cleaned and sat with my mother talking and knitting or crocheting. That's sisterly love for you.

When it was time for her to move out of the house, she moved to senior citizen apartments where she lived alone for 10 or so years until it was obvious that dementia was taking over. During that time my father would stop by to visit her every Sunday after he went to church to make sure she was ok. I started stopping in during the week to visit too and talk to her about family history and look at pictures to keep her going. After a late night fall in the bathroom, she moved to a nursing home where she's been ever since - entertaining her roommates and staff with her stories.

There are so many wonderful memories tied to Aunt Tootsie. Sleeping over her house when my parents went out, playing in the back yard with the old chicken coop or on the railroad tracks that was a feeder line from the steel mill to the main tracks, climbing the telephone pole outside her house (or trying to!), or crushing the red berries on the bushes around the house to make concoctions. My sister falling asleep under the dining room table one holiday and no one could find her. Digging through the books in her book case, the Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames and 1930s romances. Grill cheese sandwiches at the Farm Shop, sugar cookies with colored frosting that we made so many we were sick to our stomaches. She was so much more than an aunt - she had grandmother status.

Rest In Peace Antoinette Gertrude Posluszny Schmitt Fritz!