Aunt Stell and David
Written by M. Melody Tuli
Crazy Aunt Stell and David My mother had an Aunt that was
supposedly crazy...or so the rest of the family claimed. Her name was
Estelle, but everyone called her Aunt Stell. She had a very warped since
of humor about her. She would do some of the craziest things. You just
never knew when you went to visit her what she might do from one minute
to the next. She had all kinds of gag tricks in her house.
A book that she owned entitled, "The Garden of Eden", that would explode
when you opened the book. She had collapsible spoons and cups with holes
in them.
James
Hammitt, a great nephew of Aunt Stell's went to visit her one weekend,
with one of his friends from the Ball Company, at Muncie, Indiana. James
had been working at the Ball brother's company and had become good friends
with one of the brothers. They went to see Aunt Stell at her farm. She
served them both beers to drink. Unknowing to James and his friend,
she had smeared both bottles of beer with molasses. When the boys tried
to pick up their bottles of beer they couldn't.
She would tease James' son when he was little boy. He must have been
around seven years old at the time, they had just seen a movie about
the Indians and of course a massacre had taken place between the cowboys
and the Indians. They were all vacationing at Aunt Stell's lake home
at Lake Gage, Indiana.
She and uncle Will had a nice lake cottage and they both always loved
to have company, the more the merrier. They all had gone to see the
Indiana Sand Dunes near the Michigan state line.
One day Aunt Stell ran up behind Glenn; his nickname was Buddy. When
Buddy wasn't looking
Aunt Stell yelled like an Indian as loud as she could. He was scared
to death! He picked up a handful of sand and threw it behind himself.
The sand landed all over Aunt Stell, in her face, eyes and mouth.
Another occurrence, she was almost killed. She put ice down Glenn's
pants and he grabbed my Uncle Ralph's shotgun, it just so happened that
the safety lock was on the gun. Glenn said, "I'm gonna' shoot you, and
I'm not reallin' either!" I guess, that Aunt Stell turned as white as
a sheet that day!
He was just tired of all her practical jokes, he had enough...
I would have to say that I really don't remember much about her. I was
just too young. But, my mother remembered in detail about one occurrence
when we were visiting her on her farm in Indiana.
Mother said that Aunt Stell was just crazy about me. She would take
me outside for a walk around the farm to see her animals. I would help
her collect eggs from the hen house. One morning before our visit to
the hen house, she had been playing with me throwing plastic artificial
eggs that she had in a basket in the house. Well, after we had gathered
up the real eggs from the hen house in a wire basket, we brought them
back into the house. There was the basket of plastic eggs and the wire
basket of real eggs. I was ready to play her game again and I picked
up the eggs from the wire basket and started giving them a toss!
"Oh no....darling...not my real eggs," yelled Aunt Stell. So, she had
to pay the consequences.
Her tricks had a way of back firing on her. She had embedded a quarter
into her cemented back patio by her doorstep. All her many visitors
tried to pick up the quarter on there way out the door. Thinking that
someone had dropped it. She would stand at the back door watching them,
laughing.
Aunt Still was known in the local newspaper as, "The Anonymous Women
in Brown."
She
loved to go to a wrestling match, as she attended the match continually
wearing a brown dress.
Talk about the wrestlers...and their matches. These were the times of
"Gorgeous George", when wrestling was really a sport, not just mere
acting and acrobatics like today. She would sit in the front row near
the center, ring side. She took with her to the matches a hatpin, which
she hid very well in her hat, which she adorned. When the wrestlers
would bend over with their backs to her, she could jab them a good one,
right in the behind! She was as entertaining and always gave a grand
performance as well as the wrestlers. She was always given ringside
box tickets to all the matches. The promoters and producers of the show
loved her. She was great for publicity and would really bring in the
crowds.
One evening while a match included, "Gorgeous George", she could over
hear him saying to his promoter that his beautician had canceled and
that there was no one to fix up his hair for that evenings match.
He announced to the audience to see if any one was a beautician, and
if so would they be willing to do his hair for that evening. Well, guess
who volunteered her services as a beautician for that night? Yes, none
other than Aunt Stell. She had never in her life fixed anyone's hair,
but if she had the chance to be alone for 15 minutes with Gorgeous George,
she sure wasn't going to pass up this opportunity of a lifetime.
So, she yelled, squealed and held up her hand, while jumping up and
down. "Oh, yes...I am a beautician and I would love to do your hair."
He said, "Can you do the poodle-do?" She said, "Oh, yes the poodle-do's
are my specialty." So, he took her reluctantly back to his dressing
room. Handed her the equipment to do his hair. Well, she probably wasn't
back there any longer than five minutes and he could see that she was
not a beautician. So, back to her ringside seat she went. I guess, you
can't blame a girl for trying.
I would have to say that the funniest story about my great Aunt Stell
was the story about her little white, pink-eared pet pig David. David
was a pet pig that my Aunt Stell had living in her house on her farm.
She loved animals and had several cats and dogs. But, that wasn't so
unusual. This was a time before miniature pot bellied pigs were in vogue...
She
kept David in the house, loved him, bathed him, treated him as if he
were one of the family.
When David was still small enough she use to place him up to the table
in one of the dining room chairs, there he was with a bib around his
neck. Everyone that went to visit Aunt Stell knew that David was living
in the house and they just all accepted him as one of the family. Of
course, they all were aware of the fact that anything and everything
that could happen would and could happen at Aunt Stell's place. I guess
that was probably the enjoyment, excitement and sheer delight about
going out to her farm, you never knew quite what to expect. Everybody
in our family said she was crazy, but yet everyone loved her and had
so much fun with her.
One day she had a door-to-door salesman, she didn't know if he was a
Fuller Brush dealer or what he was selling. He really didn't stay long
enough for her to determine what product or goods he was selling or
what company affiliation he was representing.
As
he knocked on her front door, Aunt Stell waddled to the door. She stood
at the door to greet the sale man. When from out of nowhere came David.
David came running towards the front door, snorting and grunting with
excitement, as he loved company. It just so happened that may great
Aunt Stell had just finished her laundry that morning and had her clothes
hanging up here and there inside the house to dry in front of the cast
iron, wood burning stove, which happened to be located in her living
room.
David ran right under Aunt Stell's legs and underneath her dress with
his turned-up pink wet nose
pointed high in the air at the sales man, as he gave a snort, "hello",
sporting a pair of Aunt Stell's laundered underwear in his mouth. Well,
as this story has been told from generation to generation, to this very
day that salesman is still running!
________________________________________________________________
Aunt
Stell and David
This short story was written in memory of my mother's Aunt "Stell"
Estella Baggs-Clark-Bailey.
