Margaret Lee Harry was my Grandfather Harry’s sister. She might have been five feet tall. Her mother had taught her to use her Sunday manners every day and she did. She never married; so she doted on others. Margaret was the only girl. She was sent off to a school to do her high school work.
Aunt Margaret’s brothers attended the University of North Carolina. She went off to study nursing at the best hospital in Boston, Massachusetts General. She became the first Red Cross nurse sent to the mountains of North Carolina. In retrospect that must have required great strength of character and independence. Young women of this time period were just moving into careers of service. She started her nursing career riding a horse traveling in the rural parts of North Carolina in the early 1910’s. Once a bear frightened her horse and threw her off. The horse ran away. She spent the night in a tree.
It must have taken a great deal of spunk to attempt to educate the superstitious and distrustful rural folk in the mountains of North Carolina. Her job was to tell proud people that they needed to change practices that had existed for years. She had to persuade families to immunize their children. These people were uneducated and feared shots would harm their children. She had to educate folks about the importance of sanitary conditions for plumbing & outhouses. Asking men to relocate the outhouse because “a woman” thought it would be better must have been a tedious process. But she slowly gained their trust and admiration and made a difference.
Margaret Lee was very generous to these people. She arranged for a number of children to have cleft lips surgically repaired. She helped others attend school and college. A practice she extended to family when she paid for my mothers clothes while she was in college.
I have a magazine article that speaks of Lucinda, a poor mountain girl left to raise her baby sister after her mother died. Local people had a “silver tea” to start a fund to buy Lucinda a cow. Aunt Margaret taught her how to recognize and treat various infant illnesses. Margaret made frequent visits to the home to check on them. After three years of that responsibility, at the age of thirteen, Aunt Margaret took Lucinda to the Children of the Hills school at Tamassee, a school supported by DAR chapters. The baby was turned over to her grandmother’s care.
Aunt Margaret was in New Orleans when my mother was born. Her signature is on the birth announcement in mother’s baby book. She also gave her a hand embroidered dress and cap as a baby present. She gave her a Korean embroidered dress which was one of her “first short clothes”. She must have been equally generous through the years to Margaret & Henry and all. I have a little thank you note from my Mom thanking Aunt Margaret for a silver baby cup she gave me when I was born. (I gave the cup to Julie.) I will try to scan the note here.
In mother's book she recounted that " after many years serving in rural North Carolina Aunt Margaret came to Georgia and lived with us.
Daddy "enlarged the upstairs in the Bulloch home at Warm Springs. He added a living room, kitchen, bedroom and bath to the upstairs (which already had 4 bedrooms) We moved the dining room into the living room and she had a nice bedroom.
Aunt Margaret bought "all our Santa Claus gifts. When I went off to college she provided most of my clothing. A lady in Woodbury made me many pretty outfits which Margaret paid for."
Years later after building the house at Parkman Pond. During the missile crisis (Cuba/Russia - 1961), my Grandfather built a “fall out shelter”. When I look back on it now, the room was really just a feeble excuse for a basement room. It wouldn’t have provided any real protection during a nuclear attack. But there was a national hysteria after missiles were discovered in Cuba. The fear of nuclear attack seemed real because Fort Benning was about an hour away. If Benning had been targeted, the nuclear blast would not have impacted us. Radiation dust would have settled according to wind patterns, etc and I doubt that we would have had a very different outcome based on a stay in the shelter. At least he didn’t sit back and bite his fingernails. He took action.
Eventually Granddaddy extended the side porch and added a room above the fall out shelter for Aunt Margaret to live in after she retired. It is interesting that she choose to live with Granddaddy Harry. She had been away from North Carolina for many years. I don’t know if she considered returning there after she retired. Her parents were gone. Her brothers had a successful textile mill and might have helped her with finances. But Aunt Margaret had a lot of pride. I know they were a close family. Aunt Margaret and Granddaddy were both buried with their parents in Grover.
I loved the corny stories she told me, my sisters, and my cousins. One story that always got giggles was “Wishy, Washy, Wishy, Washy…”. The punch line involved underwear which always got a giggle. Unfortunately today’s children might think the joke was lame. Too bad. It was a good time and children were children.
As a new driver I looked for places to drive; so I would drive to the lake for a visit. I would love to hear her voice. People talk differently today. She had a gentle “little old lady quality” that reflected a different time. It is something I remember, but can’t put into words.
There were times I visited my Grandfather and I didn’t take the time to walk back to speak with her.
Aunt Margaret gave me a small portrait, I left it at home when I went to college. I never found where Mother stored it. The picture was used in a magazine article about her Red Cross work during a flood in Ohio. There are other items (her diploma, the Red Cross article) she wanted me to keep. She wanted to be remembered. The items were lost or thrown away when the family relocated to Spartanburg.
Aunt Margaret worked so hard to be helpful when she moved to Granddaddy’s. At times she may have been too helpful for Till. Granddaddy Harry had remarried well before she moved in. There seemed to be a competition for his affection between Till & Aunt Margaret. It wasn’t easy on either of them. Granddaddy was caught in the middle. But there wasn’t really any other place for her to live. She became a bit of a recluse. Trying to be pleasant, but not quite feeling she belonged. Perhaps not feeling needed anymore.
I don’t remember when Aunt Margaret stopped driving. Probably her car just got too old to operate and she was too old to drive. Perhaps she didn't have the funds to replace the car. She never replaced it.
Aunt Margaret probably started the “regifting” trend. She must not have had any substantial retirement. Sometimes it was a handkerchief, a slip, a bottle of perfume or sweet powder someone had given her. I dearly loved her.
One of my favorite gifts was a Hummel figurine of a little boy playing doctor. He had operated on a doll head. Aunt Margaret went into great detail about the friend who purchased it for her while traveling to Germany. She was truly touched they remembered her in such a special way & I was touched she gave it to me.
Because I loved it so much I purchased another Hummel with babysitting money. Gaye threw a pillow at me & I skillfully ducked. The pillow missed me, but broke the head on the little doctor & the handle off the basket of the other Hummel. Both were super-glued back. Now I love the figurines even more since they remind me of my sister as well as Aunt Margaret. Amazing how “devastating” events with lots of tears can become sweet in retrospect. But sisters (and brothers) can grow to appreciate one another, not just because everything goes right, but because of the mistakes we make. There were lots of times we chased each other, laughing and giggling, as we ran through the house. Sometimes we might overdo it and end up unhappy. But other times we ran until exhausted and we were still happy. I might not remember those times without this incident or another like it. I still have the Hummel’s, but I also have the memories.
When Aunt Margaret Lee was quite old she had to be in a nursing home. My Aunt Margaret, mother’s sister, rode with her in an ambulance from Columbus Georgia and delivered her to Spartanburg on Barbara’s wedding day. There was already stress with the wedding. Aunt Margaret had been stressed with Margaret Lee’s care for a while & didn’t appreciate that Mother would be doing her part for the next two years. It might have been nice if she had waited one more day, but we humans don’t always do all the right things each and every time. What was important was that she had cared for Margaret Lee. The wedding went on and the world didn’t stop.
Mother visited Margaret Lee every day (literally) to be sure she was well cared for, to pick up her laundry and to feed her evening meal. I believe she was there for two years before her death.
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