The classiest lady

September 10th, 2005

She was my grandmother’s older sister, my father’s aunt, my remarkable great-aunt Gert. Gert had aged far more gracefully than her name, which she’d never been fond of. Gertrude gave away her age—she was one of many Gertrudes born in 1908—but her quick wit and spry appearance had always fooled those she met into thinking she was much younger than she was. When compliments came her way, as they often did, Aunt Gert would pooh-pooh the fuss being made over her with a brisk wave of her hand. (Fortunately, her dismissals never stopped anyone, she enjoyed not enjoying the adulation for a good long time.)

Her genes were better than she wanted them to be—like both of her parents, she’d made it into her 90s, and she was somewhat less than thrilled by this. She’d just about had it with her good genes. “I’m ready to go,” she’d been sighing for years. “I don’t understand why I’m still here.” When I’d suggest that perhaps God still had a few plans left in store for her, she’d roll her eyes and smile.

“I suppose,” was all she’d say, in a tone that suggested she felt the Big Guy Upstairs had better roll out those blueprints, and fast.

He finally gave in last week. Aunt Gert passed away at the age of 96, and for those of us left behind, it’s the end of a fine era.

I didn’t get to see Aunt Gert often, but I loved it when I did. She was the stalwart keeper of the oldest tales of our small clan. As the years passed, she threw caution—and her usual propriety—to the wind and surrendered to my graceless badgering for secrets. How did they fall in love? And them? Why the feud? When did he start drinking so much? Did he cheat on her during the War, do you think? And, most important: Did my grandfather and his brothers really kill the poor iceman’s horse by mistake?

“I really shouldn’t be telling you all this, you know,” she’d say, shaking her head. But each year, the smile on her face broadened at my pestering. She was enjoying this.

“Come on, Aunt Gert. You’re the only one I can ask. You’re the only one who knows anymore,” I would say.

“I don’t want to give anything away that I shouldn’t,” would be her next protest. But then she’d tell me. And tell me more, and then some. How my grandmother, her little sister, had a wonderful singing voice. How my great-grandmother, her mother, was hard on my grandfather, and how he never said an unkind word back. How he and his brothers did indeed run into the back of the iceman’s wagon with someone’s jalopy, and how the poor iceman never recovered. She was a natural storyteller. Her stories were top-notch, and never, ever long enough.

As my father said yesterday after her memorial service, Gert was classiest member of the family, and she passed on her grace and excellent taste to her daughter, Peggy. “It makes me think of that Mark Twain quote,” my dad said. “History may not repeat itself, but it sure rhymes.”

*****

I have a picture of Aunt Gert, Peggy, me, and Sophie, perched on the couch at Peggy’s home in Springfield, Virginia. It’s a rare, perfect photo: so many generations, all of us smiling right into the camera, obviously happy to be in each other’s company.

Sophie was about 18 months old when the picture was taken. When I tell her that I am going away for a few days because Aunt Gert has died, Sophie asks, “Did I know her?”

“You did,” I say. “You were very little. But she sure loved you. I have a picture I’ll show you someday.”

Sophie nods. Death is not so complicated, not this week. “Now Aunt Gert can play with Aunt Linda up in heaven,” she says calmly. This week, Sophie is the one with the answers, and I am grateful.

*****

One of the last times I saw my aunt Gert, I knelt by her chair to talk with her.

She smiled down at me. “You look more beautiful than I’ve ever seen you,” she said.

That time, I was the one shrugging off the compliment. But she was having none of that.

“I mean it,” she insisted. “I’ve never seen you look so lovely.”

If so, it was only history, rhyming once again. Aunt Gert rarely saw the loveliness in herself, but she was always the first to spot it in others—the quintessential classy lady, in a world where classiness is harder and harder to find.

Good genes, indeed. Thank you, Aunt Gert. How we will miss you.

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