Inez Reid
Inez Reid in 1943.
Aunt Ned was like a second mother to me. I don't remember much about her when I was real young. I remember living with her in Mobile. Her and Mama would take Pat (her daughter) and I to the movies and things like that.
After my mother married and I moved to New Orleans with her, Aunt Ned stayed with us sometimes. She was a conductor on a streetcar. I would go ride the streetcar with her, sometimes all day. During that time she met John Walsh and they were married. She went to beauty school and Uncle John set her up with a shop in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. I guess that didn't work out very well for they moved to Mahopac, New York. Uncle John had a Gulf station and Aunt Ned worked for Fisher Body in Tarrytown.
In 1950 I spent the summer with them. It was really nice there. On Saturday, she would cook a full cut sirloin steak. That was about the best thing I have ever eaten. The next summer I came back and stayed and went to school in New York. Once she asked me why I didn't make the honor roll and offered me $20.00 if I did. So I put some effort into it and made the honor roll. She paid me, but said I was lazy and if I tried I could do it all the time.
A shopping center was built on US 6 and she rented a part of it and opened a fabric shop. In 1960 I was transferred to Quantico, Virginia. Aunt Ned came down to visit us at Thanksgiving and was snowed in for a week. While we were at Quantico, we visited New York often. Our older girls would spend the summer in New York. My mother and Mike were living with Aunt Ned then. Patty and Roberta were the best-dressed girls at Quantico. Aunt Ned would give Polly material and she and Mama also made dresses for them. As long as Aunt Ned had the shop, they had fancy dresses for the holidays.
When we moved back to California, she visited and took everyone to Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm. In 1970, we moved back to Quantico and spent a lot of holidays in New York. Aunt Ned and Uncle John decided to retire in Mississippi. When she was ready to move, she called me and asked me to come and load the rental truck. They had a really nice home built. It had a large dining room and a huge living room. We had a lot of great holiday dinners in that dining room. My mother's wake was held in that living room.
In the summers our kids spent the summer with them in that house. Aunt Ned always had a big garden and froze lots of vegetables. The kids complained a lot about picking and shelling peas and beans. Poor babies. Anyway, Aunt Ned bought a machine that shelled peas and beans, so that helped.
Aunt Ned thought the sun rose and set on our youngest daughter, Becky. She told Polly once what a good little girl Becky was and Polly told her, "Just tell her NO one time and see how good she is." I don't think she ever told her "No".
After Uncle John passed away, Aunt Ned spent more time in New York. Then my mother died and Aunt Ned sold the big house and bought a small house in Summit, Mississippi. Two of her grandsons were living with her and we still visited on weekends. One summer, she took Becky to New York and back on the train, but shortly after that she moved back to New York. Then she started feeling bad and went to the doctor. They found she had cancer of the liver. When she told me, it was hard not to cry right there. She visited several times after she moved to New York. The last time she came, you could tell that her time on earth was limited. I missed her very much, but I know Becky missed her more.
Written by Walter Singleman Jones, December 1999, at Kenner, Louisiana.