My Aint Big Fat

She's my grandmothers older sister and my mothers aunt, whose real name is Blanche but her sisters nicknamed her "Big Fat". She insisted that if any of her neices or nephews referred to her they made sure to include "aunt" or "ainty" or "aint" in their address. Aint Big Fat is 84 years old and showing signs of dementia but when I called her yesterday she remembered me and sounded delighted to hear from me. I'd called to ask her questions about our family's past for a family history project my son is doing. At first, her daughter, Janice didn't think she'd remember much but my questions seemed to wake her up. She sounded lively as she discussed my grandparent's meeting at a "big ballroom dance" back in the early 1940s in St. Louis when the Lindy Hop and the jitter bug was all the rage. She said that when they finally finished talking my grandmother asked my grandfather "You want me to get Audrey now?" And he looked at her embarrassed because that whole time he thought he had been talking to Audrey. Earlier that night he first tried to woo Audrey who had other things in mind, though and couldn't care less about him. But hardly anyone back then could tell my aint Audrey and my grandmother apart so she didn't hold it against him when he started coming by the house almost every day just to hear her sing and eventually gathered the nerve to ask her out. After that night at the dance he swore he never got them mixed up again. They got married and had 13 kids but raised a total of 16. Three of them they adopted since they kept running away from the foster home they lived in and were always found at my grandparents' house.
Ainty talked about my great grandparents and how her father always used to say that "Mama", his wife, taught him how to read. And that he couldn't remember his birthday but was sure it must've been in June because that was around "cotton chopping time." My great grandfather died when aint Big Fat was 13 and my great grandmother followed him two years later so aint "Sista", being the oldest, continued raising her and her siblings. There were eight of them.
Aint Big Fat spent 15 years working as a telephone operator at Goodwill Industries. She married uncle "Beasely" in 1944 and they had two daughters, Janice and Cathy.
We talked for roughly an hour and I got the impression that she didn't want to get off the phone because every time I tried to sign off and end the conversation she'd ask me how someone was doing, lol. So I told her that my mother and I would come and visit her soon and that seemed to cheer her up. I'll make sure and bring my tape recorder with me, too. She's the only one left that can tell these stories and I want to make sure I get them right later on when someone asks.