Aunt Kate

AUNT KATE

Unlike Mame, Lila and Jessie who were my second cousins but known to me growing up as my aunts, Kate, my mother’s sister, was the genuine thing.  She lived with her mother, my grandmother Harriet, on the same block as the Ford Garage, parallel to Main Street, with a Conoco Gas Station at the other end.  She was a short, slightly built woman who was full of energy.  She was the first woman pharmacist in Nebraska.  She married Carl Stenby who had come to this country from Sweden as a member of a touring choral group.  She often told me about his great strength, noting that he could run with a 100 pound barrel and throw it into a moving wagon.  I regret that she never told me about their relationship.  If I recall correctly he died with a heart attack in his early forties and it was then that she moved from the little town of Malmo, Nebraska to Ainsworth to live with her mother and continue her work as pharmacist at Whitney’s drug store.

A phrase both endearing and descriptive of Kate was her response to an invitation to go almost anyplace with almost anyone almost anytime. “Where’s my hat?” As a child I remember riding my bike to her house just to talk.  She was an enthusiastic and nonjudgmental listener.  We continued to visit her after she retired and moved to Denver.  Later she purchased half of the cabin in Evergreen, Colorado where my parents eventually spent summers during their early years of retirement.  She bought a suede sport coat for me as a present when I entered college that I wore for at least two decades, it’s comfort augmented by many pleasant memories of her.

Kate, unlike those suffering from Anorexia Nervosa, spent most of her life trying to gain weight, perceiving herself as too thin to be attractive or healthy.  I remember her, for example, consuming large quantities of undiluted cream in order to increase her caloric intake. When she got into her late 60’s or early 70’s she finally got her wish, gaining weight at a rapid rate.  She died happily obese.