Everyone called her Babe. I'm not going to tell you her real name. I didn't know it myself until her funeral, and I don't remember anyone ever using it. She was a Brady girl. Politely called a "maiden aunt" in Mississippi parlance because she was never married, Babe was one of my favorite people in the world.
Because my uncle became the Boyd Campbell you've heard about, most people in my life told stories about the Campbells and the Boyds up in Attalah county, but I was equally and sometimes more interested in my Mother's family, the Bradys of Learned Mississippi, in Hinds County.
That my Grandmother and her sisters loved me was never in question, but learning to drive increased my utility where they were concerned considerably because they could not. Having my own car, no matter how old, changed everything in my life and theirs.
"Can you take me and Babe and Edith to lunch at Primos? I'll buy you a hamburga." I'm not sure why "hamburger" had no R, but it was common for people of my grandmother's generation. My grandmother was "Sistah," but we called her "Nanny." Babe was "Babe." I'm not sure why Edith wasn't assigned a sobriquet. She was generally considered the more fancy of the three, mainly by the other two.
My cousin Robert set his mother Edith up in a nice apartment over by Parham Bridges' Park, where I had swimming privileges any time I wanted and was told some pretty girls lived there, but I never saw any. Nanny lived with us, so she sat in the front seat with me driving the Ford LTD, and we picked up Edith and headed to Babe's.
Babe lived in a duplex apartment behind the laundry on North State Street, what we now call Fondren. You could tell it had once been a pretty fine home, but at some point, an owner converted it into a duplex, and it was becoming a bit threadbare. One advantage of a home that old was that the Oak and Magnolia trees in the yard were enormous and mature.
Once at Babe's apartment, I was asked to move the refrigerator and stove so they could sweep under them, hang two pictures, replace four light bulbs, tack down the carpet in the hall and move some of her livingroom furniture so she could navigate her home with a little more ease. Besides me having the ability to drive, which none of the three had, it was becoming clear that this adventure had the primary purpose of getting me to help maintain Babe's apartment. There were advantages to having a nephew with shoulders like mine. I didn't mind. Being useful made me feel safe and wanted. For a shy kid, these are pretty important qualities. Besides, I loved Babe and would have done anything for her.
With my chores accomplished, it was time for "hamburgahs", so I drove the three sisters north down highway fifty-one to what was then known as the new Primos, but hasn't been called Primos at all in a while now. Lunch was pleasant. I told about football, my classes, books I've read and when asked about girls, I had nothing to report, other than that the girls I knew were all very nice and polite, every one.
Never married, Babe's career was babysitting children, which didn't make very much money, so her sisters made sure she was cared for, which nobody minded because they loved Babe. I did too. When I was an infant, she accidentally poked me with a diaper pin, which traumatized her, even when I was sixteen, and had no memory of it besides her telling me about it.
Dropping Babe off at her place, I headed toward Edith's apartment to drop her off. I'm not sure why they picked me, but there were times when Edith and Nanny had me alone; they would burden me with family secrets. A lot of it, I thought, was more like gossip, but some of it was pretty tangible and difficult to hear. The Brady clan endured some pretty rough times, quite a contrast to my generation.
"Babe sometimes doesn't like to drive with men alone. When she was thirteen, a man took her on a buggy ride and didn't bring her home."
I was stunned. It took a moment for my brain to work out what my Nanny was suggesting.
"Pappa and Uncle Joe went to see him and straighten it out," Edith added.
Sometimes my brain doesn't know what to do, so the wheels just spin, and I don't say anything. I didn't say much else after that. Sensing I didn't want to talk anymore, Edith and Nanny discussed what they saw in people's yards and how it compared to the yards in 1937 until the car trip was over.
Back home, I went to my room to draw and listen to music. After supper, when momma had the kitchen to herself, I asked her:
"Did Babe get...Was Babe molested?"
"Something like that." She said.
"She was just thirteen?"
"Something like that." She said again.
"Pappa was my great grandfather? What did he and Uncle Joe do?"
"I don't really know. I never asked. Handling it their way was better than going through the sheriff they thought."
I had images of them beating, maybe even lynching the man with the buggy. I'm almost sixty years old and don't know the full story of what happened and probably never will. Whatever it was, they saw it as better than going through the sheriff. I suppose that saved Babe from having to say what happened in court or really ever mention it again. I doubt if she ever knew I knew.
"Babe's so gentle and sweet. I can't imagine anything like this ever happening to her." I said.
"Bad things happen to good people. You pull together, and you get through it. Babe's family made sure she was taken care of and had a good life, even though her life ended up being different from her sisters." Mother said. "I don't know why they told you." She looked annoyed.
My broad shoulders and ability to move heavy things maybe made my grandmother believe I was stronger than I was and could bear more burdens than perhaps I really could. I've wept many times over what happened to my Aunt Babe. Writing about it makes me weep now. Writing often does.
Learned Mississippi bred some pretty durable women. They were little old ladies by the time I knew them, but their stories betray a strength under the powder and lace. They had a history very different than mine. It taught me a lesson, though. Weak doesn't mean weak. Frail might be strong if you stick together, and pain doesn't matter if you endure.
In three weeks, Aunt Babe would be one hundred twenty-seven years old. She was born on Halloween. She survived the end of reconstruction, the beginning and the end of the depression, World Wars one and two, Korea, Viet Nam, the Spanish Flu, Cholera, osteoporosis, Theodore Bilbo, Ross Barnett, Richard Nixon, and a man with a buggy. She held me as a child and changed my diapers and fed me, and read to me when I couldn't read for myself. She survived without ever giving you a hint of how much of a survivor she really was. Knowing her helped make me what I am.
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