My Dead Aunt’s Coat ( from Memoirs of The Great Depression)

Reblogging.excerpt from Everything Smells Just Like Pole Salad.  Book available in paperback and Kindle edition now.

imageNot long after Aunt Ellie’s funeral, Cousin Katie brought her faded, old plum-colored coat to Mama.  “Mr. Blizzard bought this for Aunt Ellie years ago.  The material is real good.  It won’t fit me. Do you want to make it over for one of your girls?

“I sure do.  The cuffs on Kathleen’s coat are over her wrists.  I ‘ve been trying to figure out how I could come up with some heavy material.  This should do good, if you’re sure you can’t use it.”

That caught my attention. I hated that camphor-smelling old coat.  I’d seen skinny, old Aunt Ellie wrapped up head to ankles in that faded old coat, puttering around in the yard or sitting wrapped in it next to the stove on cold days.  The front was spotted and the cuffs slick with age and wear.  I imagined myself creeping around in that worn-out coat, looking…

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