Before the freeway came through, there was a duplex here. My great aunts all lived in it after their husbands died. Ellen and Jennie were downstairs; Belle and Beverly were upstairs.
Death was just around the corner for the downstairs widows. When the city used eminent domain to seize the property and demolish the house, Ellen and Jennie moved into a nursing home.
What I remember about them the most was how happy they were when they had guests. It was fun to visit them because everything in their house was so old. They didn't have a couch, for example, they had a "davenport."
Ellen and Jennie both wore wool coats in winter that had to weigh no less than 40 pounds. Though they needed canes and walkers to get around, they were somehow strong enough to wear jackets that were one-third their bodyweight.
The upstairs widows, Belle and Beverly, moved into a different house. After Belle died, I went to visit Beverly, who lived alone and was in her nineties. She told me stories about her late husband.
"Roy snored every night," she told me. "He snored seven different ways. It's been 30 years now, but I still remember all the sounds he made in his sleep. After he died, it was so quiet in the bedroom at night that I couldn't stand to be in there."
So she started falling asleep on the davenport, watching the Tonight Show. "When I moved in with Belle and told her why I didn't need a bed, she said I should try to meet another man. I told her that she should try to shut up."
To this day, Beverly still has dreams about Roy. "He's always walking away, smiling and waving," she says. "Our marriage license is on the refrigerator if you want to look at it. We tied the knot in 1931."
Below the marriage license is a small note Beverly has written to indicate that she wants to be cremated. The last sentence is in bold letters and underlined. It reads: "Bury my ashes next to Royal."
Changing the subject, Beverly reaches into a drawer and pulls out a form that her insurance company sent to her. "They want to know what year my house was built and what kind of roof it has? How am I supposed to know that?"
Paul Lundgren is a newspaper columnist and a very nice man. His e-mail address is paul [at] geekprom.com.
