Aunt Ora
Our old maid Aunt Ora Waller would come to stay a few days
with us each summer. I remember she ate bare toast and drank hot water for
breakfast. She had a delicate stomach. Her visits carried on a tradition began
when my mother, as a girl, would stay with Aunt Ora for a week each summer. The
summer visit exchange continued until we were teenagers, mom and my sisters
would stay with aunt Ora overnight while dad and I would go sit on the
riverbank at Seneca, all night, hoping to catch a record fish. I sure thought I
was freezing as the Virginian Railroad coal trains labored by in the night.
Aunt Ora died in 1962 at age 85 in a public nursing home,
near Richmond I think. She was brought back home for burial and it was then
that the worldly property of the old maid was disposed of. My mother was there
and got a lady’s dresser set. The set contains a glass dish and the dish cover
has a hole in the top. Ladies would stuff the hair gleaned from their comb and
brush into the dish through the hole in the top, thus saving the hair for use
latter on.
And my mother found postcards sent to aunt Ora by an unknown
correspondent. The cards are addressed to Ora Waller at Stovall, Virginia and
are postmarked from 1909 to 1913. Each one begins with the phrase “Well Miss
Ora, How are you progressing…?” And the picture side of each card shows a young
man and woman that appear to be romantically inclined.
It is hard to imagine that Aunt Ora had an admirer in 1913
because she was 36 years old at the time. The story I heard was that when she
was a girl there was a lover that wanted to marry her. He had gone west
promising to return for her. She waited in vain and in waiting became an old
maid. So who was it in 1913 that wanted to send such postcards to an old maid?
Aunt Ora’s Dresser Set: open oblong bowl for buttons
and hairpins (?), shallow ten inch tray to hold brush and comb (?), and round
hair bowl with pierced cover for hair.