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Note: per, although I never saw it (it's a Fuller trait), and for regularly driving much faster than you'd ever expect from an older lady. She loved children, and one of the great joys in her older years was taking care of a little boy named Walter while his parents were working. She and Uncle Howard always got along well and would have each other laughing. In the late 1960's, they built a house next door (down the road aways) from my grandmother, Gertrude's mother. Almost every evening, Gertrude would walk down the road and sit on the front porch and visit with Mama B., and often Uncle Howard came, too.
Aunt Gertrude adored her children and grandchildren, and no visit to her house was complete without being updated on all of the latest happenings of her flock.
Gertrude was not too fond of her name, Florence Gertrude. She always thought that it wasn't fair that her sister got a pretty name, Julia Inez, and she didn't get a pretty name. Florence is after Florence Elizabeth Sears Waldrip, and Julia is after Julia Augusta Plant Waldrip. Uncle Howard called her "Sallie," but he was the only one who called her that.
Aunt Gertrude was a good cook, and would always offer to cook me anything I wanted for a dinner. I usually picked fried chicken, mashed potatos, green peas, dressing and cornbread, with iced tea. I loved being at her house. She said that her favorite time of year was the fall and winter, because that's when everybody came in and they all got to visit together. She also scared me from exploring back in the woods with warnings about hoop snakes. She said that these snakes would make themselves into a hoop, and then roll right at you and unhoop just in time to strike. I was young enough to believe her! Once a military jet crashed in the woods in back of their house, and that was a big deal with a lot of talk for a long time.
The house was (still is) on Blackberry Rd., in Holtville. When Gertrude was living, the road had not yet been named, and when they named it, Uncle Howard was mighty put out by the choice of Blackberry Rd. "Them's dewberries, not blackberries!," he said.
Aunt Gertrude kept a neat and tidy house. Uncle Howard built the house himself; he was a carpenter. Next to the house and across the road were farm fields. Usually they planted cotton, but some years it was corn, and once in awhile it was soybeans. Now it is all the genetically modified cotton. In the old days, they would spray with the crop dusting airplanes, and they would come over pretty frequently.
Gertrude loved people, and she also loved to garden, especially roses. She had a rosebed out in the front yard that she was very proud of. On the day she died, she was out working on her roses, and said she felt funny. She sat down under the tree in the front yard, and then went into the house and laid on her bed where she passed from a heart attack. Uncle Howard missed her so much that he still cried about missing her, years and years later. It is good to know they are together now. -DFP, Oct 17, 2009.
Note: My Aunt Gertrude was a friendly, outgoing, uncomplicated, hardworking woman. With Aunt Gertrude, you knew that you were 100% welcome and loved. She was also known for occasionally having a fiery tem
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