Aunt Thyra

My mom, about whom you’ll be hearing in later entries, was—not surprisingly—the person who had the most influence on my being whoever it is I am today. But in a way, I was blessed with a “second mother,” my Aunt Thyra, who hold a place in my heart very close to Mom. 

When I was very young, my dad’s job required a lot of moving around from city to city, and each time my parents had to move, they would ship me back to Rockford to stay with Aunt Thyra and Uncle Buck until they got settled in. Aunt Thyra and Uncle Buck had three boys of their own, 12, 14, and 16 years older than I, and they were as close to brother as I ever got. Though I would never have told my father, I always considered myself more a Fearn than a Margason.

Charles (“Buck”) Fearn, my mom’s brother, was nine years older than Mom, and when he returned from WWI and married Thyra Cederland, my mother hated her for having stolen away her adored brother. But that passed quickly, and they grew to be as close as sisters.

Aunt Thyra was a typical woman of her time. She never worked, staying home to cook and clean and take care of the family and later become a full-time grandmother and great-grandmother. She never learned to drive a car. She was always heavyset, but had a very pretty face, and she always smelled of talcum powder or perfume, and she treated me with as much love as her own sons. Her hugs, which she gave freely though she was not overly demonstrative, were priceless.

Every Christmas eve, we would go to their house or they would come to ours and every single Christmas from the time I was about five on, Aunt Thyra would bring me a jar of olives. A strange gift, but she knew I loved them, and they were always special, coming from her. It was another special bond between us.

She always carried a large black purse which, when she came to visit, she would always put on the floor beside her chair.

On December 7, 1941, my folks and I sat in the living room of Aunt Thyra’s and Uncle Buck’s house and listened, on a grand old console radio with burled wood cabinet and doors and a yellow dial that showed the stations (and which is still in the family), to news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was our 9-11, and the effect on the nation was even greater. The next day we were back around the radio to hear President Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech. And as we listened, Aunt Thyra could not help but look from one of her sons to the other. All three were soon taken away by the military: Charles (“Fat,” who wasn’t), the eldest and just married, and Jack, the youngest, were drafted while Don (“Cork”) enlisted in the Marines. (They would all return safely, but no one knew so at the time.) Three small blue-star flags were placed in the front window of Aunt Thyra and Uncle Buck’s home.

Aunt Thyra joined several women’s groups doing whatever she could for the war effort, and the years passed and the war ended, and the boys came home.

Uncle Buck, who had been a heavy smoker all his life, developed cancer and died in 1953, at the age of 53, and Aunt Thyra continued on without him. Remembering now how Uncle Buck’s death devastated me and my mother, I can only imagine what it meant for Aunt Thyra. She never complained, never asked for sympathy; just went on with her life and devoted her time to the growing number of grandchildren.

When my own mother came down with lung cancer, having moved from Rockford to be near me in California, Aunt Thyra, who had never been on an airplane and had always expressed a deep fear of flying, got on a plane to come out to spend some time with Mom before she died. And she, Jack, Fat, Cork, and their families were there when I returned Mom’s body for burial beside my dad. I’m not sure what I would have done without them.

I don’t think Aunt Thyra graduated from high school, and she wasn’t particularly well-read or worldly, but she more than made up for any lack in the quality of her unconditional love. After the death of my parents, she was my rock—the one remaining sturdy thread connecting me to all the love of my childhood.

And then one day in 1976 she suffered a heart attack and, rather than calling for an ambulance, called for Jack to come take her to a doctor. He found her dead on the bedroom floor, where she had been putting on a pair of stockings. She would never allow herself to die less than a lady.

Life is never easy, and as we grow older, we lose more and more of the people who were part of the very foundation of our lives. Most of my foundation is gone now. And to this day, I grieve for Ray, for my father, for Uncle Buck and all my dead relatives, and most especially, I think, for my mother…and Aunt Thyra.

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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from UntreedReads.com and Amazon.com; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com. You can find information about Dorien's books at his web site:  www.doriengrey.com: