Aunt Goldie liked this baby doll. See Picture
We called it the "Tommy" doll because granny Susie said it looked just like Tommy Howard, (grandson of Tom and Celia Crews Howard, and son of Hardy Howard), when he was a baby.
The picture was taken in Granny Susie's living room in Saint Mary's, Georgia.
Judy, you mentioned before that your mother said Aunt Goldie could remember lots of dates. That's for sure! She could tell you when EVERYONE'S birthday was. It was pretty amazing especially when you consider the fact that this was someone with the mental capacity of about a three year old in most ways.
She loved to wash dishes and so granny Susie would let her. (someone else would have to rewash them though, because she couldn't get them clean). She liked to stir the grits while they cooked.
She had this special concoction that she mixed up using ketchup and I don't know what all else from the refridgerator.
When she got up from her chair, she would say, "Come on, foots".
She couldn't pronounce the "p" sound in Pamela and she always called me "Tam-la" for Pamela (even though the rest of the family always called me Pam) and once in a great while she would call me "Tam". That was usually only when she was laughing so hard she could hardly get her breath then she would say "Tam, Tam". Usually that situation arose because I'd done something crazy like run from one room to the other with no clothes.
She also had a twitch that caused her to make faces. As an adult I've often thought of that and wondered what cause, and possible treatment, modern medicine would have found for that. I never heard anyone say why she did that. I never thought anything about it until I was long grown and she was gone. Does anyone else know what the diagnosis was???
Aunt Goldie was a sweet, gentle soul who laughed easily and loved everyone. I don't remember ever seeing her angry.
Granny Susie said that there was something wrong with Aunt Goldie's mind from birth BUT it had gotten much more noticable after an accident when she was a little girl. As Granny Susie told the story: Some of the other sisters were on top of the wood shed, or some little building, playing with "baby dolls", (bricks wrapped in dish towels), when Aunt Goldie had walked under the edge of the building just as one of the girls dropped her "doll". It hit Aunt Goldie in the head and Granny Susie said Aunt Goldie was always worse after that.
~Pamela 2002~
