On Good Friday, I knew it, as emphatically as we can know anything. The Monday after Easter I was going to visit my Aunt Mary, who lives 125 miles away on the northwest side of Houston, the only remaining sibling from my Daddy’s generation, now halfway to her 91st birthday. It was a trip I had promised to make after returning to central Texas from New Mexico at the end of December, but I just hadn’t made the time…made the time…given the time…shared the time. How many times have I heard Aunt Mary say without bitterness, “I know everyone is busy, living their lives, working, taking care of their families”. Yet she yearns to see her Hollis relatives. While her physical health is good, she is compromised by dementia. These days Aunt Mary stays close to home, although she goes to church, “goes shopping” and gets her hair done each week, all in the company of a caregiver. Except for periods generally not exceeding a couple of hours, someone is with her 24/7. As fortune would have it, I developed a stomach virus the evening before Easter. I went to church on Sunday, but after church I had to come home and go back to bed. The visit seemed in jeopardy. Monday morning I felt 100% better, but I called Aunt Mary to say that I had been sick and didn’t want to expose her to anything. She insisted that she’d rather risk catching my bug than to miss a visit from me and my middle sister Sue.
I hadn’t seen Aunt Mary since the summer of 2007, when many of our family members attended the funeral of one of our younger cousins—the generation after mine—one of Aunt Mary’s great nephews. Aunt Mary and her husband had no children of their own. The day of the funeral, she approached the chapel where the service was being held on the arms of her nephew, our cousin Donald—the oldest of our generation, moving along in his septagenarian years—and his wife Patsy. I went over to greet her, not remembering when I had last seen her, although I had talked to her on February 1 of 2007, to tell her that our mother had died that evening. The morning of second cousin Neal’s funeral, she said to me, “Hi, sugar,” although there was no look of recognition on her face as we stood there on the sidewalk leading to the funeral chapel. My two sisters, Joan and Sue, went over to greet her as well, and sensed the same absence of our aunt.
In April of 2007 I had traveled through the southeastern U. S. on a trip to visit a friend in Florida. Part of my journey both directions was time in Dothan, Alabama, the point of origin for our Hollis relatives, beginning with our great grandfather David Riley Hollis. At the Dothan library in the 1870 census for what was then Dale County, I had found our great-great grandfather Isaac Hollis, born in the coastal North Carolina county of Craven in 1823, along with his wife Cynthia (Morrell) and several of their children. I could find nothing for the 1890 census, which would have included our grandfather Stephen Edgar Hollis. I called Aunt Mary to share with her my great excitement over being in Alabama and finding even stingy amounts of information about our Hollis family and to ask her if she knew Grandpa Stephen’s birth date. Because she couldn’t remember where she kept the family Bible, I had to call her back for the date, which turned out to be 1882. Aunt Mary couldn’t remember much else on her own, and the information in Papa’s Bible was again, very stingy.
Thankfully, our mother loved talking about her maternal Texas German roots, which we can trace to 1866, when the Benfer family arrived at Galveston and made the journey overland to Harris County, settling in what is now part of northwest Houston, a great sprawl of a city. My natural curiosity encouraged me to document what my mother remembered. Now, with Mother gone, I don’t have anyone else to ask those questions that keep coming up about some Aunt Hannah or Aunt Sophie. Were they blood kin, or did they marry into the Fuchs family. Mother even remembered a lot about the Hollises, much more than those of Hollis blood offered up, even our Daddy. Why are some people so lacking in curiosity about their own roots? In the case of the Hollis family, we never heard much about their history—only that Grandpa Stephen, whose death in 1941 preceded my birth still two years away, had been born near Dothan, Alabama. Now, Aunt Mary is the only Hollis left of the greatest generation, and her memories are so few and so sketchy that they likely couldn’t be patched together to make even a baby quilt. On Monday of this week, though, I loved asking her questions, coaxing her to remember, and hearing her delight at being visited by her Hollis kin. She loved the tuna salad I made in her kitchen and the apple pie I had picked up at Central Market on the way in to town. As I mixed the tuna with mayonnaise and pickle, washed lettuce and sliced a tomato, eggs began boiling on the stove top. “Harold, is this pepper in the water?” she asked. “Yes, Aunt Mary, I picked up the wrong shaker. I meant to put salt in the water.” Meanwhile, she rifled through the pantry and refrigerator, taking inventory and offering other complements to our tuna on toast lunch.
Over lunch, I asked, “Aunt Mary, do you remember the Hollis family chocolate cake?” ”Anna Mae’s cake,” she replied automatically. She went on to talk about the icing, which is made with butter, cream and granulated sugar—not powdered sugar. Sue is the only Hollis in our part of the family making that cake these days, and she had a hard time last week remembering the particulars of constructing the cake. All I had was a list of two groups of ingredients. Sue has been puzzling over why the cake itself always falls while it cools. We’ve turned to our friend Robert, who shines in the pastry department, to sort through this dilemma. He’s taken on the cake-making role for a cookdown we’re having here soon in the country. Unfortunately, it would take way more time and effort to bring Aunt Mary here for that day than anyone will be able to work out. Fortunately for those of us who are here and who remember, Sue made Aunt Mary this, her favorite cake, for Mother and Aunt Mary’s September birthdays in their 88th year— birth dates only one week apart.
Aunt Mary treasures all of her nieces and nephews, both on the Hollis side, and the Todd side, her deceased husband’s family. Every one of us has great memories of visiting Aunt Mary and basking in her bountiful love and good humor. The Hollises love telling yarns, and Aunt Mary still has some of that spark. “Don’t slip on that floor and tear up your Rooster Jane,” she cautions. On Monday we talked about her years with the telephone company in Houston, a job where she excelled and was promoted over the years from the mid 1930s into the early ‘60s. Our Uncle Pat, her oldest sibling, had encouraged her to continue her education after she graduated from what was then 11 years of schooling required for a diploma. “I wanted to have my own money,” she said. “I loved clothes, and I was able to help out Mama after Papa died.” Always stylish and elegant, in spite of severe thinning of her hair that began when Aunt Mary was in her 30s, she has always like being well turned out, with a splash of lovely fragrance as part of her aura. She loves pretty things, old things, and I attribute my love for antiques to her and my Daddy.
On Monday we talked about a little of everything, mostly our Hollis family. Although Aunt Mary hasn’t been a regular churchgoer for many years, she informed Sue and me, “I go to church most Sundays”. “Which church do you attend, Aunt Mary”, I asked. “Methodist, but I’m not becoming a Methodist,” she replies. The Hollises have deep roots in the Baptist Church, East Texas primitive Baptist, foot-washing Baptist, hard-shelled Baptist, although none of them was ever particularly compulsive about church attendance, not that I remember anyway. Uncle Pat and his family moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico in the late 1940s for him to start a career as a pharmacist. They became Roman Catholic, and as far as I know, they’re the only ones sprung Stephen Edgar Hollis and Sallie Antoinette Forest Hollis who have a long, uninterrupted history of faithful church attendance.
“Aunt Mary, do you know who Isaac Hollis is,” I asked. She didn’t. “He was your great grandfather. I found him and his wife, Cynthia Morrell Hollis, along with some of their children, including David Riley Hollis, your grandfather, in the 1870 census in Dothan, Alabama.” I added this information to a list of names she kept in Papa’s Bible, a list that didn’t even include all of Papa Stephen’s siblings. “Aunt Mary, who was Minnie Sowell”? She, along with sister Miriam, had somehow not made it to Aunt Mary’s list. I have pieced together that Minnie Lee was the oldest of Papa Stephen’s siblings. “How do you remember all of this,” Aunt Mary asked, smiling. “I pay attention,” I replied.
We had a great four-hour visit last Monday, Aunt Mary repeating how much she loved her Hollis family and thanking us for coming to visit. “I have three bedrooms, if you ever decide you want to come spend the night,” she offered. As the afternoon moved on, I announced that I had miles to go and responsibilities awaiting me along the road. Hugging and promising to visit again, we made our way out the back door. I had moved onto the driver’s side of my truck, while Sue continued talking to Aunt Mary at the end of the porch walkway. I sensed that they were having a private moment. I discovered then that Aunt Mary had asked Sue, “Now what is your name?” With a smile, Sue reminded her, and then said, “Aunt Mary, Mother told me that you had something to do with naming me Carolyn Sue,” but Aunt Mary didn’t remember. She remained at the end of the porch walkway until we had turned around and headed toward the front gate, smiling and waving as we drove away.
Visiting Aunt Mary—Normangee, Texas (March 26, 2008)
R. Harold Hollis
I hadn’t seen Aunt Mary since the summer of 2007, when many of our family members attended the funeral of one of our younger cousins—the generation after mine—one of Aunt Mary’s great nephews. Aunt Mary and her husband had no children of their own. The day of the funeral, she approached the chapel where the service was being held on the arms of her nephew, our cousin Donald—the oldest of our generation, moving along in his septagenarian years—and his wife Patsy. I went over to greet her, not remembering when I had last seen her, although I had talked to her on February 1 of 2007, to tell her that our mother had died that evening. The morning of second cousin Neal’s funeral, she said to me, “Hi, sugar,” although there was no look of recognition on her face as we stood there on the sidewalk leading to the funeral chapel. My two sisters, Joan and Sue, went over to greet her as well, and sensed the same absence of our aunt.
In April of 2007 I had traveled through the southeastern U. S. on a trip to visit a friend in Florida. Part of my journey both directions was time in Dothan, Alabama, the point of origin for our Hollis relatives, beginning with our great grandfather David Riley Hollis. At the Dothan library in the 1870 census for what was then Dale County, I had found our great-great grandfather Isaac Hollis, born in the coastal North Carolina county of Craven in 1823, along with his wife Cynthia (Morrell) and several of their children. I could find nothing for the 1890 census, which would have included our grandfather Stephen Edgar Hollis. I called Aunt Mary to share with her my great excitement over being in Alabama and finding even stingy amounts of information about our Hollis family and to ask her if she knew Grandpa Stephen’s birth date. Because she couldn’t remember where she kept the family Bible, I had to call her back for the date, which turned out to be 1882. Aunt Mary couldn’t remember much else on her own, and the information in Papa’s Bible was again, very stingy.
Thankfully, our mother loved talking about her maternal Texas German roots, which we can trace to 1866, when the Benfer family arrived at Galveston and made the journey overland to Harris County, settling in what is now part of northwest Houston, a great sprawl of a city. My natural curiosity encouraged me to document what my mother remembered. Now, with Mother gone, I don’t have anyone else to ask those questions that keep coming up about some Aunt Hannah or Aunt Sophie. Were they blood kin, or did they marry into the Fuchs family. Mother even remembered a lot about the Hollises, much more than those of Hollis blood offered up, even our Daddy. Why are some people so lacking in curiosity about their own roots? In the case of the Hollis family, we never heard much about their history—only that Grandpa Stephen, whose death in 1941 preceded my birth still two years away, had been born near Dothan, Alabama. Now, Aunt Mary is the only Hollis left of the greatest generation, and her memories are so few and so sketchy that they likely couldn’t be patched together to make even a baby quilt. On Monday of this week, though, I loved asking her questions, coaxing her to remember, and hearing her delight at being visited by her Hollis kin. She loved the tuna salad I made in her kitchen and the apple pie I had picked up at Central Market on the way in to town. As I mixed the tuna with mayonnaise and pickle, washed lettuce and sliced a tomato, eggs began boiling on the stove top. “Harold, is this pepper in the water?” she asked. “Yes, Aunt Mary, I picked up the wrong shaker. I meant to put salt in the water.” Meanwhile, she rifled through the pantry and refrigerator, taking inventory and offering other complements to our tuna on toast lunch.
Over lunch, I asked, “Aunt Mary, do you remember the Hollis family chocolate cake?” ”Anna Mae’s cake,” she replied automatically. She went on to talk about the icing, which is made with butter, cream and granulated sugar—not powdered sugar. Sue is the only Hollis in our part of the family making that cake these days, and she had a hard time last week remembering the particulars of constructing the cake. All I had was a list of two groups of ingredients. Sue has been puzzling over why the cake itself always falls while it cools. We’ve turned to our friend Robert, who shines in the pastry department, to sort through this dilemma. He’s taken on the cake-making role for a cookdown we’re having here soon in the country. Unfortunately, it would take way more time and effort to bring Aunt Mary here for that day than anyone will be able to work out. Fortunately for those of us who are here and who remember, Sue made Aunt Mary this, her favorite cake, for Mother and Aunt Mary’s September birthdays in their 88th year— birth dates only one week apart.
Aunt Mary treasures all of her nieces and nephews, both on the Hollis side, and the Todd side, her deceased husband’s family. Every one of us has great memories of visiting Aunt Mary and basking in her bountiful love and good humor. The Hollises love telling yarns, and Aunt Mary still has some of that spark. “Don’t slip on that floor and tear up your Rooster Jane,” she cautions. On Monday we talked about her years with the telephone company in Houston, a job where she excelled and was promoted over the years from the mid 1930s into the early ‘60s. Our Uncle Pat, her oldest sibling, had encouraged her to continue her education after she graduated from what was then 11 years of schooling required for a diploma. “I wanted to have my own money,” she said. “I loved clothes, and I was able to help out Mama after Papa died.” Always stylish and elegant, in spite of severe thinning of her hair that began when Aunt Mary was in her 30s, she has always like being well turned out, with a splash of lovely fragrance as part of her aura. She loves pretty things, old things, and I attribute my love for antiques to her and my Daddy.
On Monday we talked about a little of everything, mostly our Hollis family. Although Aunt Mary hasn’t been a regular churchgoer for many years, she informed Sue and me, “I go to church most Sundays”. “Which church do you attend, Aunt Mary”, I asked. “Methodist, but I’m not becoming a Methodist,” she replies. The Hollises have deep roots in the Baptist Church, East Texas primitive Baptist, foot-washing Baptist, hard-shelled Baptist, although none of them was ever particularly compulsive about church attendance, not that I remember anyway. Uncle Pat and his family moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico in the late 1940s for him to start a career as a pharmacist. They became Roman Catholic, and as far as I know, they’re the only ones sprung Stephen Edgar Hollis and Sallie Antoinette Forest Hollis who have a long, uninterrupted history of faithful church attendance.
“Aunt Mary, do you know who Isaac Hollis is,” I asked. She didn’t. “He was your great grandfather. I found him and his wife, Cynthia Morrell Hollis, along with some of their children, including David Riley Hollis, your grandfather, in the 1870 census in Dothan, Alabama.” I added this information to a list of names she kept in Papa’s Bible, a list that didn’t even include all of Papa Stephen’s siblings. “Aunt Mary, who was Minnie Sowell”? She, along with sister Miriam, had somehow not made it to Aunt Mary’s list. I have pieced together that Minnie Lee was the oldest of Papa Stephen’s siblings. “How do you remember all of this,” Aunt Mary asked, smiling. “I pay attention,” I replied.
We had a great four-hour visit last Monday, Aunt Mary repeating how much she loved her Hollis family and thanking us for coming to visit. “I have three bedrooms, if you ever decide you want to come spend the night,” she offered. As the afternoon moved on, I announced that I had miles to go and responsibilities awaiting me along the road. Hugging and promising to visit again, we made our way out the back door. I had moved onto the driver’s side of my truck, while Sue continued talking to Aunt Mary at the end of the porch walkway. I sensed that they were having a private moment. I discovered then that Aunt Mary had asked Sue, “Now what is your name?” With a smile, Sue reminded her, and then said, “Aunt Mary, Mother told me that you had something to do with naming me Carolyn Sue,” but Aunt Mary didn’t remember. She remained at the end of the porch walkway until we had turned around and headed toward the front gate, smiling and waving as we drove away.
Visiting Aunt Mary—Normangee, Texas (March 26, 2008)
R. Harold Hollis
3 comments:
What a beautiful tribute to your Aunt. Like you, I am very curious of my heritage. My family didn't take many photos of the families and early on, we had moved away from Chicago, where all my Aunts & Uncles had settled, to Arizona. As bad fortune would have it, we lost a lot of communication we needed to piece the history together. Luckily for us, though, my ex-sister-in-law has the time and the where-with-all to research this for her chldren, if not for all of us.
These times are so special to you & your sister and most certainly your Aunt. Treasure that and know even if she didn't remember all of the details, she likely enjoyed the trip back in time.
Colleen
hi, harold. so good to hear from you and catch up on your news. loved hearing about your visit with your aunt.
will miss you at roundtop/fayetteville this time as the trip did not work out for me on many levels. just didnt seem it was meant to be. heard that jim doesnt have the house in fayettville any more and was sorry to hear that. i loved his guest house and he and his friends were fun to visit with.
i hope you have a grand time at roundtop and much success. cant stand that i wont get to see your latest treasures. your venue is always such fun and worth the trip where ever you are. please let me know how it goes for you there.
love,
fran
Hi, I came across your blog searching for information on Stephen Edgar Hollis. My mother and I are filling out information on ancestory.com. My great-grandmother is Maude Reese Sowell. Her mother was Minnie Hollis Reese. It looks like you've done some research as well and I was wondering if we could get information from you. Also we are trying to figure out where Z.N. Morrell comes in the picture. We are trying to piece that all together. Thanks for any info!!
Jaime
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