This little girl was the last child of my grandparents. Born in the early 1930s, Grandma called Angela her 'change of life baby.' Angela, small and petite, became a living, breathing baby-doll to her older sisters, who were in their late teens and early twenties when she was born.
Somewhere along the way, Angela was given the nick-name of "Sookie" by her brothers and sisters...... I have no idea how that name came to be, but that's what most of my generation of cousins called her: Aunt Sookie. When my dad was in the Army during World War II, he wrote the name "Sookie" in white paint on the front of his jeep.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, mostly everyone in the family dropped the name Sookie and began to call her Angela again. To us kids who were so used to calling her Aunt Sookie, calling her Aunt Angela sounded very adult and it was hard to say without falling into giggles over her given name. (As if the name Sookie wasn't giggle-worthy?)
Angela inherited her mother's talent for baking.... cakes and breads and pies and cookies... anything and everything could be mixed together from scratch and baked in special pans with special baking tools. She loved to bake... and would rather bake than cook because she thought that cooking a meal was more messy than baking a dessert. "Besides, everyone loves desserts.... not everyone loves everything that I cook," Angela would say.
Angela married an Irish man..... Uncle Bernie. They had one son, my cousin S. Uncle Bernie learned to eat all the Italian foods cooked by my grandmother and my aunts, and he loved it all and said he'd never eaten so well until he became part of the family. On every holiday, there would always be a bowl of mashed potatoes for Uncle Bernie, cooked especially for him because he enjoyed them so much..... he didn't care for the sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving, or the roasted potatoes at Christmas. Grandma would say: "He's Irish... the Irish like their mashed potatoes... don't touch those potatoes, they're for Bernie."
When Angela and Bernie were first married, they lived in a little cottage by a lake in Spring Valley. From their front door, you could walk down to the small beach and put your toes into the lake, or swim out to the wooden platform in the middle of the water. I don't actually remember just where Spring Valley was, but it was surely out of the city limits. No noises from traffic, no bus lines, no subways. Just lots of green trees and houses without sidewalks. It was a magical place for our generation of cousins and we all loved to be invited up there for the day, a weekend, or a week during the Summer. We all thought our cousin S (Angela and Bernie's son) was the luckiest boy on the planet to be living in such a carefree place where no one seemed to be concerned about locked doors and kids playing in the front yard without supervision. They eventually moved out of that little cottage and into a high-rise condo.... no one in the family had ever lived in such a fancy-dancy place before and it was a culture shock to my generation of cousins. We all missed that tiny little cottage by the lake.
At all of the family parties and get-togethers, all of my dad's sisters would be dressed in classic black dresses, with smart-looking hats and black shoes. They were all beautiful, without a doubt, but they all preferred black dinner dresses instead of any other color. Except for Angela.... she would walk in with the brightest dress, the most flamboyant hat, the most colorful shoes and purses. Like all of her sisters, she was beautiful, but in that family sea of black dresses, Angela was like a brilliant rainbow. My generation of cousins couldn't wait to see what she was wearing at all the parties, holiday dinners, christenings, weddings. We were a big family... there were a lot of parties and celebrations, and many occasions for dressing up. Angela never disappointed... she always had the biggest and most-feathered and beribboned hats, the most colorful dresses, and she wore eye shadow before any of her sisters dared to try that colorful cosmetic.
In the 1960s, Uncle Bernie and Aunt Angela and their son S went on a trip to Disneyland, and they didn't drive there, they took a plane. This was a big event in the family, since until that time, hardly anyone had ever been out of New York state, much less on a plane. My generation of cousins thought that S was the luckiest kid in the family..... while the rest of us were content to watch "The Wonderful World of Disney" on television every Sunday night, S was actually going to Disneyland. "He's going to see Mickey Mouse! And he may even see Walt Disney!" We all wished we could jump into a suitcase and stow away on the plane with them.
The night before their plane flight, they stayed at my grandparents' house because it was so close to the airport. I remember Angela on that night, not wanting to mess up her hair-do...... she had gone to the beauty salon that morning and her hair was done up in a fancy French Twist with a few curls at the back. She didn't want to put her head down on a pillow and mess up her hair. I remember Angela saying "What would Mr. Disney say if I show up there in a crushed French Twist?" Angela slept sitting up that night, propped up with three pillows, and when she left for the airport, her hair-do was salon perfect and ready for Disneyland.
I don't exactly remember when Angela and Bernie split up, but it was a shock to the whole family. They seemed so happy together, always surrounded by that bride-and-groom-on-top-of-the-wedding-cake aura. I never asked any questions about their problems, and it just always seemed to me that Angela never stopped loving her husband, long after they'd been separated. At one of the holiday dinners when Bernie was no longer around, there was an absence of mashed potatoes on the dining room table. Aunt Dolly always made them just for Uncle Bernie, and it seemed to me that the holiday table just wasn't complete somehow, even though Bernie was the only one who usually ate them.
In the early 1990s, I went to dinner with Angela and my cousin R. It was a spur-of-the-moment visit with Angela, since R and I were out driving and right near the small apartment where Angela lived. The three of us decided to have dinner at a small local Italian restaurant not far from the apartment. All during dinner, Angela talked about growing up with her sisters and brothers, her marriage to Bernie, her son S, the little cottage in Spring Valley, the large modern condo. She didn't mention details about the break-up of her marriage, but I remember her saying "And before I knew what was happening, Poof! Just like that! It was all over! And now I have this tiny kitchen and most of my baking pans are still in the packing boxes."
I spoke to Uncle Bernie in the late 1990s. He had gotten in touch with my Uncle Tony out in Arizona, and he gave a phone number where he could be reached "by anyone in the family who would like to say hello." Uncle Bernie at that time wasn't in the best of health and my Uncle Tony thought that calls from the family would brighten his day, his week, his year. To make my Uncle Tony happy, I called Bernie to say hello.... and we had a very nice conversation. Uncle Bernie talked of the little cottage in Spring Valley, the big apartment in the condo-complex, and he remembered the holidays with the family. "Your Aunt Dolly made the best mashed potatoes, and Grandma made lasagna that no one can duplicate." Uncle Bernie talked of Uncle Mino's fastidiousness, Aunt Jaye's leopard coat, Aunt Edie's opera gowns, my dad's love of driving, Uncle Tony's bowling. I listened to family stories that day that I hadn't heard in years, and the sound of Bernie's laughter was as infectious as it was when I was a kid.
Angela passed away in 2010..... she was in her mid 70s, and her death shocked everyone in the family. She was the youngest of our grandparents' children, and no one expected an early passing for her. My Aunt Dolly, who was 97 at that time, was just beside herself with grief. Even now, at 100 years of age, Aunt Dolly still talks of Angela's passing as something that "wasn't right... it should not have happened to such a young girl." Forever young, forever the baby of the family... that's how Angela will always be remembered.
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