Happy Birthday, Gladys: One Month and One Day Apart--by Aunt CB

“You and Gladys were babies and I was watching over you while your Ma was off visiting. You got hungry and as long as I could nurse Gladys, I thought I’d do the same with you, so I did!” said Aunt Lil.

As you see, we never had a chance! Bound together as babies, we continued our appreciation of one another to the end of life. Gladys and I made a pair! All through our almost seventy years together, I only remember one argument, and neither of us could tell you what the bone of contention was, but it occurred on the Caldwell Hill Road, very near where the drive to the Cemetery comes in. It was a dill! Pulling hair, kicking, scratching, and ended with my continuing on up the hill to Grandma’s and Gladys returning to the store.

Whenever we were in Center Lisle, we were inseparable, her house or at the farm, we were together! Sleeping four in a bed, crosswise, sometimes at Aunt Lil’s, sometimes at Grandma’s, made no difference. When Gladys had constipation problems, no matter, I went right along with her. Fortunately Aunt Lil’s outhouse was a two seater. A favorite one though, on the road to the farm, was Belle Barrow’s. That was a three seater, one low for little kids, and she had tons of funny papers stacked near the door way!

We never had a spare minute when we got together. We might be on the upper floor of her garage, rolling cigarettes on a machine, (a fun job) or picking blackberries at the farm. Sometimes we were “helping” Adin in his jobs, clearing the spring in the back pasture for the cows or in the woods, trimming trees.

That was where we were that hot July day when we all rested while Adin took a break. Doris and Harold were with us too. Sitting there, around an ice cold spring-fed pool, Adin noticed one of us, fiddling with our socks, rolling the top up and down. “Let’s have a club,” he said, “the roll down stocking club!” Any activity with Adin was OK with us, so we all agreed. “Now we need a password” he exclaimed. “How about Bullshit?” Again, if Adin had said, “Jump in the pool,” we’d had done so, thus and ever after the five of us were banded together in this special club!

I’m sure Harold remembers, as I do, Gladys’ first bike. She hadn’t quite gotten the knack of riding a two wheeler when we took it up to the farm to help her learn. Inspired, we decided the easy way would be for the three of us, Harold, Gladys and me to ride it down Caldwell Hill Road together. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the territory, that’s about two miles, mostly down hill!

Harold jumped on the rear wheel guard, Gladys sat on the seat and I pedaled (or braked, mostly the latter). By the time we reached the straight away, near Aunt Florence’s farm, we knew we were in trouble! No brakes at all, we’d ruined them! Uncle Elmer was not happy with us!

Still a team, the summer of 1942, we helped out by babysitting Wendell, five or six months old at the time. We were in charge while he napped the afternoon when Elliot, his father, came to see him. We’d been cautioned against a visit from him, and this time he was very definitely under the weather, drunk as a skunk and aggressive. At fifteen, I’d never been around this kind of behavior and Gladys, having prior knowledge of him on a tear, was scared to death.

We quickly locked the door and spoke through it to him. He was insistent; we resisted as he hammered and kicked the door. My only knowledge of such times was gained by reading “True Story” a magazine that Gladys received, so I said, “Do we have any black coffee?” Gladys just looked at me, laughed and said, “How are you going to get it to him, through the keyhole?” Finally he gave up and left, but ever after, Wendell was “our boy,” for we’d saved him.

Together still, in 1953 or so, Gladys and Lester bought Adin’s farm to have a go at farm work. “We are buying it on a shoestring,” she told me, and I responded, “and on the other end of that shoestring we’re buying our first house in Rochester.” Time moved on, babies came and grew and we wrote letters as we could. One of my favorites, in response to one I’d written her when she had pneumonia, included the fact that she was prostrate in bed, and were she up, she’d never notice the cobwebs in the corners, but from her vantage point they bothered her. She yearned for a gold spray paint to festoon them and cheer herself up!

She had quit school at sixteen, for whatever reason, but her inquisitiveness never left her, and led to her finally working to get her GED. As she did so, she influenced half her neighbors to do the same. Some gal she was! Not done yet though, while working full time as an aide in a hospital, she attended Community College and received an Associate’s Degree.

Yep, her sense of humor was incomparable. She said she’d have had a stepfather after Elmer died, but for the fact that the other side of her mother’s bed was covered with books! (A true Baker, or Borthwick!- reading was passed along to us all in the genes.) After Aunt Lil’s funeral, we clubbed together once more--at the church reception, and shared a piece of lemon pie. Close together, each with a fork, and one plate full of pie, Joyce Henderson’s mother said, “There’s lots of pie, you can each have a piece.” “No,” returned Gladys, “this is the way we have to mourn together.”

When I heard in the fall of 1996, that she had been diagnosed with A.L.S. (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) I was devastated. I received one of the last letters she ever wrote in a card for Christmas. I still have it, for it is a love letter. One doesn’t throw them away.

Regardless of the weather, we visited as often as we could, through January, February and March. Lester will always be in my “best” book, for he did everything for her, rebuilding the porch steps with a runway for her, bathing and turning her, as the disease progressed and she could do nothing for herself. Still her humor shone, we’d come and she’d have a funny tale to tell, to giggle over, until speech muscles froze.

Born April 22, 1927, one month and one day after myself (March 21). Growing up, I never missed a chance to remind her that I was the older one! As adults, she got back at me, over and over, as SHE was the younger one! Died, March 28, 1997, I am very sure that she’d have giggled once more, pointing out, “and I never became 70 years old!”

I miss my twin!

Picture One: Gladys, Lucille, 1931

Picture Two: Lucille and Gladys

Picture Three: Gladys (on the left) and Lucille, taken as teenagers at 30 West St, Geneva, 1943 or 1944--They had each made "broomstick " skirts and were showing them off [ a broomstick skirt is a very full cotton skirt that you wet and wind around a broomstick and let it dry, thus all sorts of creases!!]

Picture Four: Gladys at Center Lisle, 1976

Picture Five: Gladys