Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories.
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My grandmother, Hettie Tracy, had a wonderful sense of humor. When I was a kid, she could make me laugh whenever she wanted. I might be crying because I fell off my tricycle and skinned my knee, but in only a few minutes she would say or do something so funny I would start laughing.
I think her sense of humor was a genetic thing, because her brother, Jake, was also a pretty funny guy. Then there was Aunt Goldie, who may have had the best sense of humor of them all. Goldie lived in North Lewisburg, and every now and then she would pay us a visit. Maybe she came to town to do some shopping. Or she and her husband, George, might just be out for a Sunday drive. Whenever she was in the area, she stopped in to see us.
There was almost always someone at home when she stopped by. Occasionally, however, there might be no one at home. When that happened, Goldie wanted to let us know that she had been there. So she left us a message. It wasn’t a written message, but it let us know that Goldie had been there. Let me tell you how she did that.
When she knocked on our door and no one answered, she just used the skeleton key we kept on a ledge on our front porch. Once inside, she didn’t look for a pad and pencil to leave us a note. She had another way to say, “Goldie was here.”
She walked into our dining room where six chairs were in place around the table. She turned every one of the chairs upside down. Each chair was placed perfectly, but it was upside down.
Then she went to the kitchen and did the same thing with the chairs at our kitchen table as well as with a tall kitchen stool. The living room was next. Even my dad’s easy chair and footstool were turned upside down. She finished by overturning all the chairs on our front porch. Then she left and went back to North Lewisburg.
I remember coming back from a shopping trip to Columbus, and even before we turned into the driveway, my mother said, “Oh, Goldie was here.” From the corner of Fifth and Maple streets, she spotted the overturned furniture on our front porch.
All this happened when I was a kid in the 1940s. Years later when Goldie passed away, I wanted to attend her funeral, but I would be out of town on a business trip. So the day before the funeral, I went to the funeral home in North Lewisburg.
When I saw her there lying in repose, I felt a deep sense of sadness. But then I realized that I was smiling. When I looked at her, I just couldn’t shake those images of her walking through our house as she turned all of our chairs upside down. That’s the way I will always think of Aunt Goldie.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at williamboyd514@gmail.com